National Security Adviser Michael Flynn arrives in the east Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, for a news conference with President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. . (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

General Mike Flynn’s legal team was back in US District Court on Friday and his new attorney, Sidney Powell, came loaded for bear. Rather than walk away from the plea deal, Powell wants additional discovery with the stated intention of a) obtaining sanctions against the Mueller team prosecutors who were operating under the direction of the lawless Andrew Weissmann (h/t to Will Chamberlain for the scans of Powell’s filing).

The issue is Weissmann’s goons concealing Brady material (see the explainer). This is a hot button issue with the judge in this case, Emmett Sullivan. Sullivan, by standing order, instructs prosecutors of their duty divulge exculpatory material to the defense and he his the guy who tossed Ted Stevens’s conviction because of the grotesque misconduct by the Department of Justice.

Here is sort of seems like that when the prosecutors were forced to cough up more material, there was exculpatory material included but they tried to paper over the concealment by stating the material was not covered.

The reaction was not long in coming. The New York Times’s Adam Goldman, who has been the beneficiary of a lot of FBI and Mueller related leaks and who claimed that terrorist rejoice when the FBI shuts down a leak

FBI diverts resources to hunt down leakers. Terrorists cheer. So do Russians.

— Adam Goldman (@adamgoldmanNYT) August 4, 2017

was on the job. Check out the lede:

Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, escalated their attacks on prosecutors on Friday, recycling unfounded conspiratorial accusations in a last-ditch bid to delay his sentencing in a case in which he has twice admitted guilt.

The move could anger Emmet G. Sullivan, the federal judge who will sentence Mr. Flynn. The filings could magnify any doubts by Judge Sullivan about whether Mr. Flynn truly accepts responsibility for his crime of lying to the F.B.I. and whether he fulfilled his cooperation agreement with the government in one of the lingering cases brought by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.

Actually this is entirely bullsh**. Powell is not recycling conspiracy theories. Apparently, what Goldman considers to be a conspiracy theory is this:

In a pair of filings, Mr. Flynn’s lawyers made clear that they view him as a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, amplifying right-wing theories about a so-called deep state of government bureaucrats working to undermine President Trump. The defense lawyers accused prosecutors of engaging in “pernicious” conduct in Mr. Flynn’s case, saying they had been “manipulating or controlling the press to their advantage to extort that plea.”

If we hadn’t just gone through over two years of rogue Clinton loyalists in the federal bureaucracy using the power of the state to spy on the presidential campaign of President Trump, to spy on his transition team, and to connive to have a special prosecutor appointed on the basis of a document they either knew or should have known was bogus this might be humorous. But we did and Goldman is delusional if he still holds that these were just devoted public servants trying to innocently oust a president.

The government has stated that Flynn has fulfilled in agreement. And if Sullivan has any doubts it will be about the prosecutors. I’m 99% convinced that the lambasting that Flynn got from Sullivan, where he was accused of treason, was an effort by Sullivan to get Flynn to not lay down and roll over for what is looking more and more like a dishonest prosecution.

Here’s Rowan Scarborough to remind us of some of the details.

One of the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn at the White House is fired agent Peter Strzok. He headed the Trump-Russia probe, used the dossier and vowed in a text message to “stop” Mr. Trump.

The other agent who interviewed Flynn was the link between the bureau and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Mr. Ohr became the main messenger for Fusion GPS, the Clinton opposition research firm that hired former British spy Christopher Steele. He wrote the now-discredited dossier that alleged a wide Trump-Russia election conspiracy.

The conduct and motives of Strzok and his partner are very much at issue.

Here you have an example of officials, I suspect one of them is named Andrew Weissmann, leaking classified information to Goldman that the government refuses to share with Flynn’s attorney:

“We must have access to that information to represent our client consistently with his constitutional rights and our ethical obligations,” Mr. Flynn’s lawyers wrote.

The classified transcripts of the calls make clear that the two men discussed sanctions at length and that Mr. Flynn was highly unlikely to have forgotten those details when questioned by the F.B.I., several former United States officials familiar with the documents have said. It was clear, the officials said, that sanctions were the only thing Mr. Flynn wanted to talk about with Mr. Kislyak.

All in all, Goldman’s story is a one-sided apologia for the conduct of a team of lawless cretins hellbent on punishing political opponents for fun and profit. It is the prosecutors response to Powell’s brief, not a news story. The are more focused on telling Judge Sullivan and people who might influence him what right thinking people at the New York Times demand that he do rather than covering the story. And the fact that Weissmann and his cronies would come out of the woodwork to slam Powell’s filing shows she is onto something that they don’t want brought to light.

Flynn is certainly playing a high stakes game. And we owe him a debt of gratitude for that. The quickness of the response from Mueller’s goons as relayed through the New York Times shows that they are afraid of what is coming next. Even if Flynn doesn’t walk, more and more of the abuse of power and deliberate misconduct that were Andrew Weissmann’s stock in trade are going to become apparent and eventually someone is going to be called to account.

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