Flynn’s Former Biz Partner: Gov’t Hasn’t Disclosed All Of Flynn’s Misstatements

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Defense lawyers for a one-time business partner of former national security adviser Michael Flynn say Flynn has lied so often that the government can’t possibly have fulfilled its legal obligation to disclose all of his misstatements.

At a hearing Friday in federal court in Alexandria, though, prosecutors said they’ve more than met their disclosure obligations.

Flynn’s former partner, Bijan Kian, is facing trial for illegal lobbying on behalf of Turkey. Kian and Flynn were pushing the U.S. to expel a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen, who is a nemesis of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kian’s lawyers say they expect Flynn will be the key witness at Kian’s trial, and they’ll need to impeach Flynn’s credibility as a witness. Flynn has already pleaded guilty as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to making false statements, and Kian’s lawyers say they know more about Flynn’s lies from the public record than they do from what the government has disclosed from its files.

Prosecutors have said they have fulfilled their responsibility to provide information from their Flynn files that could be helpful to the defense. Indeed, Assistant U.S. Attorney James P. Gillis said prosecutors have provided even more information that they’re required to from notes that FBI agents have taken in their interviews of Flynn since he began cooperating with authorities.

But Gillis said Kian’s lawyers should not be given carte blanche to “frolic through everything the Office of Special Counsel has produced” regarding Flynn. He said Flynn’s statements on some topics are sensitive and are part of ongoing investigations, including investigations being done outside the special counsel’s office.

Kian’s lawyers, though, said that they deserve to know about lies Flynn has told even if they do not tie directly to the Kian case, because they can be used to impeach his credibility as a witness.

“A lie is a lie. A bad act is a bad act,” defense lawyer Mark MacDougall said.

The judge at Friday’s hearing said he’s confident prosecutors will make the necessary disclosures. But he did order defense lawyers to make a list of specific categories where they feel they are entitled to more information, and ordered prosecutors to review it to see if additional disclosures are warranted.

Notable Replies

  1. I’m not a lawyer… but if you’ve engaged in unlawful activity with someone, arguing that the Government hasn’t told you about all the lies he has told them does not seem to me to be a particularly great argument to get into. I am just saying that it seems like it’d be easy to get caught off-sides by this argument.

  2. Avatar for paulw paulw says:

    It’s a twofer. Impeaching Flynn’s credibility as a witness and gaining access to sensitive information that can be bartered.

  3. Since there’s NO COLLUSION, I’m positive that it’s entirely accidental that every defendant out there is trying to get access to the inner working files of the entire Special Counsel, using almost identical arguments that they have to know about things unrelated to their specific case…

  4. Slime versus slime.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

7 more replies

Participants

Avatar for system1 Avatar for paulw Avatar for alcaray Avatar for old_curmudgeon Avatar for alyoshakaramazov1 Avatar for longtimeobserver Avatar for katwillow Avatar for pshah Avatar for georgemilquetoast Avatar for castor_troy Avatar for nycabj Avatar for karlwlewis Avatar for emiliano4

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: