An attorney for Michael Flynn is accusing the government of withholding evidence of her client’s innocence and manipulating official documents in an explosive court filing.
The lawyer alleges rogue FBI agents manipulated records after the former national security adviser’s 2017 interview that ultimately led to charges of lying to investigators.
Per Fox News:
Sidney Powell, Flynn’s attorney, filed a 37-page motion on Thursday, outlining several big allegations, once again requesting the government produce all evidence as it relates to Flynn — urging the court to “dismiss the entire prosecution for outrageous government misconduct” and hold the prosecutors in contempt.
The entire case stemmed from that FBI interview where Flynn was asked about his conversations with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to making false statements regarding those conversations during his interview, as part of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
But as his legal team goes on offense in the long-running and still unresolved court proceedings, Powell alleged that FBI officials manipulated Flynn’s FBI 302 — a form used by agents to report or summarize interviews. It’s not clear who may have done the alleged editing, though ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok was involved in the original interview.
“Those changes added an unequivocal statement that ‘Flynn stated he did not’ — in response to whether Mr. Flynn had asked Kislyak to vote in a certain manner or slow down the UN vote [on sanctions],” Powell wrote. “This is a deceptive manipulation because, as the notes of the agents show, Mr. Flynn was not even sure he had spoken to Russia/Kislyak on the issue. He had talked to dozens of countries.”
Federal prosecutors adamantly deny claims they’re withholding evidence saying, “the government has exceeded its discovery and disclosure obligations in this matter.” That included providing Flynn with thousands of pages of documents.