Flynn Sues DOJ, FBI for Malicious Prosecution, Wants $50 Million
Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn is a former national security advisor to President Donald Trump. He has filed a lawsuit against DOJ, FBI and other agencies alleging that he was maliciously pursued. He wants at least $50 million in damages.
“Defendant maliciously investigated and prosecuted General Flynn by initiating and continuing a baseless counterintelligence investigation and by filing a criminal information lacking probable cause,” The suit was filed with the U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida on March 3.pdf).
The FBI started investigating the Obama administration’s former head, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), in August 2016 for possible ties with Russia. In 2017, he was charged for lying to the FBI during a conversation with them.
According to the suit the FBI and then prosecutors from Robert Mueller’s office investigated and prosecuted Mueller for political reasons and considered him a menace.
“General Flynn—who already had a reputation as a hands-on disruptor at DIA, who had publicly excoriated the politicization of the intelligence community, and who had made clear his desire to overhaul the national security structure and the ‘interagency process’—was a direct threat, not only to the self-interest of entrenched intelligence bureaucracies and the federal officials involved, but to exposing their prior and ongoing efforts to derail and discredit President Trump,” The suit says.
Flynn’s case was dismissed riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. Although FBI agents had decided to close the case in January 2017, higher-ups intervened and kept it open. They believed Flynn might have violated an outdated law known as the Logan Act. Flynn discussed with a Russian Ambassador the priorities of the new administration during the transition period. The legal theory was rejected by DOJ officials at that time. According to several lawyers, the 1799 Logan Act, which bans certain types of unauthorized diplomacy may not be constitutional. It has never been successful prosecuted.
The Flynn investigation (codenamed Crossfire Razor) continued “only because of Defendant’s agents and agencies’ malicious, partisan, and unethical intent to investigate their political opponents generally and to destroy General Flynn specifically,” The suit says.
According to subsequent media leaks, he was accused of violating the Logan Act after he spoke with Sergei Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, about the sanctions that were imposed at that time on Russia by Obama’s outgoing administration.
FBI top brass carefully prepared and organized the interview so that it appeared as “an informal meeting, just to put the Kislyak calls being discussed in the press to bed,” The suit says.
Two FBI agents interrogated Flynn on January 24, 2017. They asked him if he had spoken with Kislyak regarding expulsions of Russian diplomats. He denied it, but that was not the truth. He said no when he was asked again.
This exchange formed the core charge against Flynn that Mueller brought up in May 2017.
Flynn initially pleaded guilty, but later withdrew his plea. He claimed that he didn’t intend to lie, and that he entered the plea because his lawyers misled him and because the prosecutors threatened to pursue his son.
The first team of lawyers had internal emails indicating that Flynn’s son was being left alone if Flynn signed the plea.
After William Barr, then Attorney General, directed an outside prosecutor to examine the case in 2020 the DOJ dropped all charges against Barr. Timothy Shea was the then-head of U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Columbia. concluded It seemed that Flynn’s interview was done by the FBI to accomplish this purpose. “elicit … false statements and thereby criminalize Mr. Flynn.”
The judge in charge of the case refused dismissal, and Trump eventually pardoned Flynn for the offences.
Flynn’s suit claims that Flynn was subject to malicious prosecution. Flynn also alleges that the government abused legal process by forcing Flynn to plead guilty by threat of prosecution against his son and by targeting him with baseless investigations and charges.
“As a direct and proximate result of Defendant’s actions, General Flynn suffered harm,” The suit says.
“He was falsely branded as a traitor to his country, lost at least tens of millions of dollars of business opportunities and future lifetime earning potential, was maliciously prosecuted and spent substantial monies in his own defense, and has suffered and will continue to suffer mental and emotional pain for the rest of his life, in addition to other pecuniary harms such as costs, fees, attorneys’ fees, and other losses.”
It claims that Flynn’s case would bring justice to Flynn and set the government on a course. “back to public trust.”
“Punitive damages are not only warranted but essential to deter any present or future … official from harming anyone else like they harmed General Flynn,” It is clear.
From Flynn Sues DOJ, FBI for Malicious Prosecution, Wants $50 Million
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