A Question of Attorney Immunity, A United States President and a Judge

Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the government to produce transcripts of recordings in the case against Michael Flynn, over which he is presiding. Before getting to the government’s excused defiance of this order, I want to reiterate a point that has consumed my interest because of its revelatory qualities.

It is thanks to Judge Sullivan that we have the unedited transcript of Trump attorney John Dowd’s voicemail message to Flynn lawyer Rob Kelner, in which (if you take the Mueller Report at face value) Dowd obstructed the Mueller investigation. Trump escaped a criminal charge for the phone call, according to the report (page 300), only because attorney-client privilege precluded disclosure of Trump’s potential knowledge of and responsibility for it.

But attorney-client privilege does not extend to conversations in furtherance of a future crime and attorneys have no immunity from prosecution for the commission of a crime on behalf of a client.

NEW – Judge Sullivan has let the DOJ slide.

They will not be required to release the Flynn transcripts. He walked back his prior order.

Note: still (small) potential for transcripts to be submitted to Judge under seal. (Not public docket) pic.twitter.com/qk9SmoP0Yh

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) June 4, 2019

Why didn’t Mueller’s minions charge Dowd? Not to put to fine a point on it, Dowd remains at large because he didn’t do anything wrong. Mueller, his minions, and his report are full of it. See “Dowd dings Mueller” and the earlier posts linked in it.

On Friday prosecutors declined to produce the transcripts ordered up by Judge Sullivan. What would Judge Sullivan do about it? Unfortunately for those of us seeking to understand the Flynn case, Judge Sullivan walked back his order.

Prosecutors succeeded in pulling off the Bartleby approach to Judge Sullivan’s order. For the moment, anyway, we are left cursing the dark, hoping for illumination to be cast by Attorney General Barr and United States Attorney John Durham.

Credit: PowerLine Blog

Michael Flynn abruptly fires his lawyers before he is sentenced for lying to the FBI when he was Trump’s National Security Adviser

• Flynn’s lawyers put a federal court on notice through a filing
• A court document states their withdrawal and says Flynn has new counsel
• He has been cooperating with Special counsel Robert Mueller
• Flynn was represented by Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony of Covington & Burling 
• Judge blasted attorneys at a hearing where they compared him to other defendants even as Flynn was accepting responsibility
• Kelner got a voicemail from Trump lawyer John Dowd where Dowd expressed Trump’s feelings for him 

Former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn has fired his lawyers in advance of his sentencing for lying to the FBI.

Flynn has ‘is terminating’ the law firm of Covington & Burling as his counsel, according to a court filing, after being represented by partner Robert Kelner in a series of high-stakes legal battles.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators, has spent months cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, who have attested to the utility of information he provided.

Kelner was the recipient of a voicemail from former lawyer for President Trump, John Dowd, which Mueller include in the report, which examined multiple instances of possible obstruction by the president.

Judge Emmett Sullivan, who is overseeing the case, ordered its release Friday.

In the transcript of the message, Dowd asks Kelner for a ‘head’s up’ if Flynn had any information that ‘implicates’ the president, according to an unsealed document.

Dowd also pointed out Trump and ‘his feelings toward Flynn,’ in a call that was referenced in the Mueller report. ‘I’m sympathetic; I understand your situation,’ Dowd says in the message.

Thursday’s filing about counsel provides no reason for Flynn’s decision. The Justice Department released the transcript of a November 22, 2017 voicemai, but has yet to comply with an order to release the transcript of Flynn’s conversations with Russia’s former ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

Judge Sullivan erupted during a 2018 hearing after Flynn’s legal team submitted a document that made the case his lies weren’t as bad as those told by other defendants – at the same time Flynn was accepting responsibility for his offenses.

‘The decisions made by me, made by [co-counsel Stephen] Anthony, are entirely ours and really should not and do not diminish in any way General Flynn’s acceptance of responsibility in this case,’ Kelner said at the time.

Flynn has amassed $5 million in legal bills, ABC reported in March.

Credit: Daily Mail, June 6th, 2019