Michael Flynn moves to withdraw his guilty plea
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn seeks to formally withdraw his guilty plea, saying federal prosecutors breached their deal with him; insight from Michael Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell.
Author and attorney Sidney Powell, who is representing former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his federal case related to the Russia investigation, told Fox News Tuesday she believes her client may be able to successfully withdraw his guilty plea for lying to the FBI.
In a court filing, Flynn's legal team accused the government of acting in "bad faith, vindictiveness and breach of the plea agreement." The filing came just days after the Justice Department reversed course to recommend up to six months of prison time for Flynn, alleging he was not fully cooperating or accepting responsibility for his actions.
"They've been abusing their power for the last year in spades, Sean," Powell told Fox News' "Hannity". "The reason this all came to this is because they tried to get him to lie in the prosecution of United States vs. [Bijan] Rafiekian -- his former business partner -- and with new counsel standing by his side, of course, there was no way I was going to let him do that and he didn't want to do that."
MICHAEL FLYNN MOVES TO WITHDRAW GUILTY PLEA, CITING 'BAD FAITH' BY GOVERNMENT
Powell said she and Flynn's other representatives "pushed back" against federal prosecutors by presenting them with evidence "for hours showing them all kinds of different things that supported the fact that he was telling the truth.
"Instead they doubled down, came against him, tried to designating the co-conspirator, even though they had told the judge in the Eastern District [of Virginia] that he was not," Powell continued. "They never thought he was."
"It's just been one atrocity after another," said Powell, who added that the government's recent sentencing memorandum appeared to be "full of lies and distortions."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"The prosecution has shown abject bad faith in pure retaliation against Mr. Flynn since he retained new counsel," Flynn’s attorneys wrote in the filing. "This can only be because with new, unconflicted counsel, Mr. Flynn refused to lie for the prosecution."
The filing continued: "Justice is not a game, and there should be no room for such gamesmanship in the Department of Justice."
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox