The “at Least One Other District” Mike Flynn’s Cooperation Live In

The other day, I described the graymail that former Mike Flynn sleazy influence peddling partner, Bijan Kian, was engaged in. In an effort to identify all the lies Flynn told to discredit him on the stand, his defense team was asking for all his 302s (FBI interview reports). Yesterday, the judge gave Kian a partial victory, ordering him to come up with a specific list of things they still want.

The response is still graymail — they want documents that will embarrass Trump and disclose some of the most sensitive parts of Mueller’s investigation — but not as excessive as it could have been. Among the things they’re asking for are:

  • Details of whether he told DIA about a 2015 meeting with Sergey Kislyak and payments from RT, Kaspersky, and Volga-Dnepr Airlines.
  • A description of the reasons Flynn got fired from DIA in 2014.
  • Details of Flynn’s contact with Kirill Dmitriev and other Russian officials following the election, and whether those were reported to DIA.

Now, this graymail attempt seems to be more focused on revealing that Flynn is nowhere near as honorable as the title he’d use at trial, General, would otherwise indicate. There’s a reason Turkey picked Flynn to run their anti-Gulen campaign, and it’s that he’s willing to trade his values to make a buck, and these documents will help demonstrate that. The government may still want to delay handing these documents over.

That said, details disclosed in the hearing (CNN, Politico, CNS) suggest there may be parts of Flynn’s cooperation beyond those embarrassing details relating to the Mueller probe, parts that wouldn’t be included in Kian’s discovery request.

First, the government revealed that there are 19 Flynn 302s, of which 15 are from Mueller’s office.

In all, the Virginia prosecutors say they have 19 memos from Flynn’s cooperation –15 from the special counsel’s office and four from the Turkish lobbying investigation in Virginia.

“We do not want those 302s leaving the office” of the Virginia US attorney inside the courthouse, Gillis said

More interestingly, AUSA James Gillis at first said those other 302s pertain to investigations in more than one other US Attorney district, only to correct himself and say they pertained to at least one other district.

The prosecutor in court Friday stopped himself after he acknowledged other US attorneys may be looking at what Flynn shared with the special counsel.

“At least one other district,” he said, correcting himself after first saying “districts,” before asking to withdraw his statement in court representing the number of ongoing investigations.

Some thoughts on what this new information might mean.

The government is pretty sensitive about the 302s pertaining even to this case, asking that Kian’s attorneys review them at the EDVA US Attorney’s office, not share them with other counsel, not copy them, and not quote from those not identified as Jencks material at trial without permission.

This may, in part, be an effort to keep the documents out of the hands of Ekim Alptekin, the other defendant charged with Kian, who is back in Turkey.

As of Thursday, Kian’s team had seen just “several” and therefore not all four of the Flynn 302s pertaining to this investigation.

To be perfectly clear, the government has already permitted the defense to review a number of 302s, including several 302s of General Flynn. We have offered upon reasonable conditions to give the defense an opportunity to review all of the General’s 302s that were generated during its investigation of the crimes charged in the indictment,1 as well as the 302s for all but one2 of the other witnesses interviewed in connection with the present charges.

1. The conditions the government requested are listed in the attachment. We offered to negotiate these terms, but we have not heard from the defense. It is interesting, therefore, that the defense has filed this motion for all of General Flynn’s unrelated 302s when that have not even taken the opportunity to review those actually relevant to this prosecution.

2 This individual’s identity is being protected for the time being to prevent any reprisals or tampering involving the witness.

In addition, some of the 302s deemed to belong to the Mueller investigation mentioning Kian or Alptekin or other entities involved in the conspiracy.

Under similar conditions, we have invited the defense to review redacted versions of General Flynn’s 302s that contain any mention the defendants or any reference to the other individuals or entities involved in the charged conspiracy – regardless of whether they relate to this prosecution or to other investigations by the Special Counsel’s Office.

This suggests there’s more of a Turkish part of the Mueller investigation than previously reported.

Remember that in Flynn’s initial FBI 302 (which must be additional to the 19 capturing interviews while he was cooperating), he explained away his December 29, 2016 conversation with Sergey Kislyak to the FBI by claiming they were talking about a Syrian peace conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.

The redactions in Flynn’s 302 included two passages on Flynn’s December 29, 2016 phone calls with Ambassador Kislyak. In the first, Flynn offered up that he and Kislyak had discussed two things: a phone call with Vladimir Putin that would take place on January 28, and whether the US would send an observer to Syrian peace talks Turkey and Russia were holding in Kazakhstan the next month.

[snip]

The claim that those Kislyak phone calls discussed a later call with Putin and the Astana conference is the same one the Transition would offer to the WaPo the day after David Ignatius made clear that the FBI had recordings of the call. Mueller’s reply to Flynn’s sentencing memo describes that Flynn asked a subordinate to feed this information to the WaPo.

[snip]

Flynn’s lies to cover the discussion about sanctions and expulsions were not entirely invented; he’s a better liar than that. The Transition really was struggling over its decision of whether to join in a Syrian peace plan that would follow Russia (and Turkey’s lead) rather than the path the Obama Administration had pursued in the previous year. As he noted to the FBI, the Trump Administration had only decided not to send a senior delegation to Astana earlier that week. It was announced on January 21.

[snip]

But by staking his lies on the Astana conference — and the Trump Administration’s willingness to join a Syrian effort that deviated from existing US policy — Flynn also raised the stakes of his past paid relationship with Turkey. It became far more damaging that Flynn had still been on the Turkish government payroll through the early transition, when Trump directed him to conduct early outreach on Syria. So even while DOJ was repeatedly telling Flynn he had to come clean on his Turkish lobbying ties, he lied about that, thereby hiding that the early days of Trump Administration outreach had been conducted by a guy still working for Turkey.

Under similar conditions, we have invited the defense to review redacted versions of General Flynn’s 302s that contain any mention the defendants or any reference to the other individuals or entities involved in the charged conspiracy – regardless of whether they relate to this prosecution or to other investigations by the Special Counsel’s Office.

In other words, there appear to be parts of the Mueller investigation pertaining to Turkey outside of Flynn’s sleazy influence peddling with Kian. Some of those may have been spun off (like so much else) to other districts (perhaps SDNY, where Reza Zarrab flipped).

Now consider the addendum to Flynn’s sentencing memo describing his cooperation (of which there was an ex parte version withheld even from Flynn). I’ve suggested the description of his cooperation (which covers the same 19 302s at issue in yesterday’s hearing, so there has been no new cooperation since December) is structured like this.

Between the three investigations, Flynn sat for 19 interviews with prosecutors.

Here’s the structure of how the body of the cooperation section describes the three investigations:

A Criminal Investigation:

11+ line paragraph

6.5 line paragraph

2 line paragraph

B Mueller investigation:

Introductory paragraph (9 lines)

i) Interactions between Transition Team and Russia (12 lines, just one or two sentences redacted)

ii) Topic two

10 line paragraph

9 line paragraph

C Entirely redacted investigation:

4.5 line paragraph

The description of the first and third investigations are both almost entirely redacted.

The description of his cooperation with the Mueller investigation is split into two topics — i) interactions between the transition team and Russians, plus another ii) redacted section.

Category A is almost certainly the Kian prosecution, which consists of 4 302s.

Category B, Mueller’s investigation, breaks down into what we know (transition related activities) and something else. Parts of that something else (which likely has to do with the Trump team’s serial efforts to monetize the presidency) may well have gotten spun off.

Then there’s Category c, which given what was said yesterday, seems to relate to Mueller but is of a different sort of information — I’ve suggested it may pertain to a general counterintelligence investigation into Russia, one that might live at DOJ’s National Security Division rather than a US Attorney’s office.

That still doesn’t tell us all that much — except that Flynn hasn’t cooperated further since December and the 3-part cooperation described in his cooperation memo may involved some complexity reflecting Turkish issues that were part  of the Mueller investigation as well as other topics (graft?) that could have been spun off.

Mueller may be close to done, but his investigation seems to have spin-offs that we haven’t even begun to hear of yet.

As I disclosed last July, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

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36 replies
  1. Judas Peckerwood says:

    Thanks, Marcy — interesting and edifying as always.

    Though I do take issue with “…revealing that Flynn is nowhere near as honorable as the title he’d use at trial, General, would otherwise indicate.”

    Maybe it’s just me, but considering history’s rich pageant of corrupt, anti-democratic and bloodthirsty generals, “honorable” isn’t a word that automatically leaps to mind to describe them.

  2. Doug R says:

    Totally redacted? It does sound like a National Security investigation.
    Can someone be impeached on secret information? Just asking.

  3. OldTulsaDude says:

    Everyone, it seems, is trying to become another Russian oligarch. Makes me wonder what would happen if everyone in the world who is not a billionaire walked off the job. Who is John Gestalt?

  4. irate1 says:

    Marcy- Excellent as always. From your March 13 post:
    [W]hile the defendant remains in a position to cooperate with law enforcement authorities, and could testify in the EDVA case should it proceed to trial, in the government’s view his cooperation is otherwise complete.

    But wouldn’t the government need Flynn to testify in any ConFraudUS trial, and any trials spun-off in which he has provided critical information? Or, is “defendant remains in a position to cooperate with law enforcement authorities” vague enough to make that sentence mean the opposite of “his cooperation is otherwise complete?”

    • MattyG says:

      IANAL but I took it to mean that there’s a difference between cooperation – and availability to testify. Cooperation is direct assistance in providing new information in furtherance of a case – testifying is an obligation any person might be called upon in a case they were involved in.

      I look forward with relish to more info on the Flynn front. Mueller has been awfully quiet about Trump and his closest team members other than Flynn and Pauly – and charges were brought against them almost immediately which makes me really curious as to the what and why the restraint in naming others implies. They were not working in isolation – is the counterintel side so deeply embedded in the activities of Trump’s circle that things need to be held back as they are?

      • Mitch Guthman says:

        “Cooperation and testimony” is essentially a term of art that’s intended to make explicit that refusing to testify fully, completely, and truthfully is a material breach of the cooperation agreement. The idea is to make as certain as possible that the cooperator doesn’t double cross the government and clam up on the stand. And it simplifies the government’s possible difficulty with subpoenas and so forth.

        My own guess is that no prosecuting attorney would ever call Flynn as a witness precisely because of the three areas of discovery being sought by the defense. Also, assuming that what the government is seeking to withhold does indeed show Flynn to be less than honorable in his dealings with foreign enemies, I doubt the government would want to explain his sweetheart deal.

    • emptywheel says:

      One of the things the government suggested is that because he flipped early, other people who could be witness to the same thing straightened out their stories before being charged for lying. They’ll do the in-person testimony.

      Plus, if there is a ConFraudUs charged, I think the conspiracy law permits statements to come in.

      • MattyG says:

        Yes, the OSC was pretty clear (during the sentencing hearing end of last year I think) that Flynn’s early cooperation facilitated the gathering of timely statements and testimony from others involved, and suggested was that this was of *great* assistance to the investigation – as opposed to Papy’s delay tactics which muckeed things up.

        It seemed they were prepared to offer Flynn’s early and substantive cooperation as a primary mitigating factor in reducing jail time for a crime or list of crimes (redacted) likely beyond the pale..

  5. Eureka says:

    Thank you for contextualizing this vis-a-vis your prior topical A,B,C breakdown. What’s behind door number Bii? Or rather, will Monty ever open it?

    This quoted paragraph:
    “Under similar conditions…”
    is accidentally duplicated at the bottom of the following blockquote (of a prior post). (Unless you meant to separate and reintroduce it (vs. artefactual): see also paras. immediately following each instance of that quoted paragraph.)

    ETA: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

  6. earlofhuntingdon says:

    I’m afraid this is going to be a constant refrain throughout this election cycle, but the credulous headline for the Guardian’s reprint of this AP story is cringeworthy: “Joe’s verbal slip sets off speculation of presidential run.” [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/17/joe-bidens-verbal-slip-sets-off-speculation-of-presidential-run]

    The “slip” comes in this whopper: “Democratic party favourite tells crowd he has ‘the most progressive record of anybody running.'” That is wrong on so many levels, it amounts to irresponsible journalism. Joe Biden is one of the least progressive Democrats around, he is the best kind of Democrat a bankster could ask for.

    That a wannabe front runner “slipped” on the topic of his candidacy, much less a guy with Biden’s fifty years in the business, would make Mencken and Twain guffaw. The AP’s folksy misconception reads like a campaign ad, and should be labeled that way. Its closing confirms it:

    Just minutes before Biden’s slip of the tongue, [current Delaware governor John] Carney told the crowd: “In my humble opinion, we have never needed Joe Biden more than we need him right now.”

    Didn’t the press do enough damage by pretending that Donald Trump was a popular clown who could do no harm, but who was great fun and great for ad revenue?

    • Badger Robert says:

      Nothing makes Senator Sanders look better than the prospect of a Joe Biden candidacy. I suppose if a person can capture the Democratic label and advocate the Republican platform, that looks great, to Republicans like Jeff Flake and the alleged John W. Dean. Chickens who won’t run anymore as Republicans naturally think the Democrats should become Republicans.
      Good morning.

    • JKSF says:

      I am old enough to remember that Joe Biden steps on his tongue with great regularity. Nice guyish, but not the sharpest tool in the shed. We can do better.

    • harpie says:

      On the day Mueller announced that Manafort had breached his plea agreement, 11/26/18, @Delavegalaw wrote [but unfortunately did not thread the tweets] https://twitter.com/Delavegalaw/status/1067220598403694592
      *
      [quote] Suspect Manafort didn’t appreciate the scope of U.S. extraterritorial jurisdiction over crimes committed in Ukraine and elsewhere. It’s fairly broad, esp if proceeds end up in the U.S. International kleptocracy has been a focus of Mueller and members of his team for decades. / If you wanna know what Manafort might be afraid of (*is* afraid of), read this excellent piece by @woodruffbets. When you do business with one of FBI’s most wanted criminals, i.e., Semion Mogilevich, the FBI wants to hear about it. And you should be very afraid to tell them.
      *
      [links to]: 6:44 PM – 14 Sep 2018 [ommitted this link, but can provide]
      *
      [quote] Can’t stress enough how erroneous it is to view the Mueller investigation thru a narrow lens over 2015-2016. Mueller has a J.D. & M.A. in int’l relations. The DOJ/FBI Kleptocracy Initiative began in his tenure. This is an international criminal case & Manafort is a major player. / 6:12 AM – 27 Aug 2018 If you want to know how Bob Mueller views the threat of international kleptocracy, you don’t have to speculate, read what he, himself, said in 2011: “FBI – The Evolving Organized Crime Threat” [end quote]
      *
      She writes about the speech here: https://twitter.com/Delavegalaw/status/1034513481867960320
      *
      [quote] […] Here, for anyone who wants to do a deep dive into what the FBI, DOJ & other agencies have been doing to combat international organized crime for years, is a Sept 2003 US Attys’ Bulletin. Mueller was FBI Director; The introduction is written by…Bruce Ohr. [end quote]

      • cfost says:

        Mueller’s mandate as Special Counsel is much narrower than the scope of his investigations of international organized crime over the past 20 years or so. No wonder that certain people are trying hard to discredit the FBI. Trump Crime Family is just a small part of the contemporary mob operation. I suspect the mob stuff (and the big names/companies involved) is what Mueller is sitting on or farming out.

        • P J Evans says:

          It’s limited to everything arising from Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, if that’s what you want to call “narrow”.

          • cfost says:

            Seems crazy to say it, but yeah, the 2016 election stuff is only a part of what the FBI has been investigating regarding the Russians and the modern-day multinational mob. Hard to separate “Russian government “ from “Russian mob.”
            Maybe DeLaVega said it best above: “can’t stress enough how erroneous it is to view the Mueller investigation thru a narrow lens over 2015-2016.”

      • harpie says:

        From the ProPublica article:
        *
        [quote] […] The search warrant cites three potential crimes that authorities are investigating: conspiracy, money laundering and violations of the law barring covert lobbying on behalf of foreign officials.
        […] Federal authorities were also seeking records in Broidy’s office related to the United Arab Emirates, UAE adviser George Nader, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and any travel to the Middle East.
        According to the warrant, federal authorities also sought to seize any records related to China and Guo Wengui, […] The Times reported that Broidy explored plans to use his influence with the White House to force Guo out of the United States, apparently as part of an effort to curry favor with the Chinese and other foreign officials, and ultimately earn a payoff.
        […] The search warrant for Broidy’s office also lists a name and corporation not previously linked to Broidy: ‘Joel Rouseau’ and ‘Intelligent Resources.’ […] “If you want to be successful, you need the beautiful people,” he told Crain’s New York in 2007, which described him as a specialist “in bringing agency models to clubs.” […] [end quote]
        *

      • harpie says:

        From Wendy Siegelman, this morning 6:01 AM – 18 Mar 2019:
        https://twitter.com/WendySiegelman/status/1107628140774543361
        *
        [quote] More in this [2:01 PM – 30 Nov 2018] thread on a November indictment of George Higginbotham that describes the activities involving Pras Michel, 1MDB and attempt to extradite Guo Wengui to China – Elliott Broidy is reported to be Individual No 1 in filing [end quote]
        *

      • harpie says:

        Carol Leoning [WaPo] writes:
        *
        [quote] Here’s what we wrote in Aug. 2018 about the DOJ investigating RNC co-leader Broidy for allegedly selling access to Trump White House, and seeking documents last summer. Kudos to @ProPublica for getting the search warrant [LINK WaPo] [end quote]
        *
        Mattthew Miller responds 6:50 AM – 18 Mar 2019: https://twitter.com/matthewamiller/status/1107640337059770369
        *
        [quote] I either missed or had forgotten that Public Integrity was doing the Broidy probe. Think that means Mueller has spun pieces off or produced evidence/cooperators for five offices that we know of: SDNY, DC, EDVA, NSD, Crim. Tentacles everywhere. [end quote]
        *

  7. harpie says:

    This is for BMAZ:
    *
    [quote] Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing and FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system
    https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/failed-certification-faa-missed-safety-issues-in-the-737-max-system-implicated-in-the-lion-air-crash/ Originally published March 17, 2019 at 6:00 am [end quote]
    *
    [quote] “Both Boeing & the FAA were informed of the specifics of this story & were asked for responses 11 days ago, before the 2nd crash” of 737 MAX [end quote]
    *

  8. PSWebster says:

    Thanks, Emptywheel. Looking forward to see how Flynn gets rolled out on all this duplicity.

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