Brandon Van Grack, one of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s handpicked prosecutors, has withdrawn from the case against former National Security Adviser General Michael Flynn (Ret.).
Van Grack’s withdrawal marks a major victory for Flynn and for his new attorney, Sidney Powell, who have secured the release in recent days of exculpatory evidence showing that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) may have targeted Flynn.
Documents released last week show the FBI deliberating about whether their real goal in meeting Flynn in January 2017 at the White House was to obtain the truth, or to have him prosecuted or fired.
Senior FBI officials used the pretext of an informal meeting to set Flynn up — without informing him that he was a target of investigation.
The “crime” for which he had been probed was violating the Logan Act of 1799, a statute preventing private citizens from conducting diplomacy. It is almost never enforced, and Flynn arguably had not violated it in any case, since he was incoming National Security Adviser when he had conversations with foreign officials, including the Russian ambassador.
Furthermore, text messages released last week reveal that the FBI had found no evidence of any wrongdoing by Flynn. On Jan. 4, 2017, the FBI drafted a memo to close the case — until agent Peter Strzok intervened, saying that senior leadership wanted the investigation to remain open.
The next day, Jan. 5, then-FBI Director James Comey met with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and other senior officials in the White House. Comey was told to brief President-elect Donald Trump the next day (Jan. 6) about the contents of the false “Steele dossier,” which was then leaked to the media.
Flynn’s original lawyers, from the Covington and Burling firm — where Obama’s former attorney general, Eric Holder, is a partner — negotiated a plea bargain in which he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Powell told Breitbart News Sunday that evidence had emerged to show that the FBI had agreed not to pursue charges against Flynn’s son if Gen. Flynn pleaded guilty — a deal that had not been properly disclosed.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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