Is the deep state communicating actions and talking points to Judge Emmet Sullivan through media outlets such as the Rachel Maddow Show? It’s a distinct possibility. So, would anyone care to guess what Judge Sullivan was watching on television the night before his infamous December 18th, 2018 sentencing hearing of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, where he questioned if Flynn should be “charged with treason?” Apparently, it was the The Rachel Maddow Show.
We aren’t the only ones who noticed. In an October 7th, 2020 motion to disqualify Judge Emmet Sullivan filed by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s attorneys, one of the more sensational claims made was that Sullivan had effectively paraphrased Rachel Maddow’s show from the evening before the hearing.
In order to take a closer look, The Washington Pundit has obtained transcripts of both Maddow’s show and Sullivan’s comments for a side-by-side comparison.
On page 19 and pages 25-26, Sullivan seems oddly concerned about Flynn’s continued cooperation as a witness for the government on other cases and how that should be considered in Flynn’s sentencing.
In the transcript shown below, we see that Maddow had discussed the timing of release of an unsealed indictment on the eve of Flynn’s sentencing, and whether Flynn would remain useful as a cooperating witness in the case.
Sullivan also seemed particularly fixated on the recently unsealed indictment in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). The EDVA indictment was against Flynn’s business partner Bijan Kian (“Bijan Rafiekian” in court filings) and Flynn’s client Ekim Alptekin (“Kamil Ekim Alptekin” in filings), in which they were charged with violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and lying to investigators as part of an alleged scheme to work as illegal foreign agents on behalf of Turkey. Despite the indictment having been unsealed just the day before and only briefly mentioned in earlier filings entered into evidence in Flynn’s case, Sullivan seemed to know all the details of the EDVA case. Sullivan somehow even knew that Flynn was person “A” in the indictment, and was overly interested in Flynn’s culpability in the case (pages 22, 28, and 32), even though the evidence was found to be so flimsy that the judge set the verdict aside.
Below is the transcript of Maddow’s discussion of the EDVA case and Flynn as ‘Person “A”‘ in the indictment.
It should be noted that this was one of the earliest public indications that Sullivan was following news reports related to the Flynn case and, thus, considering “extrajudicial” information in his handling of the case. This matters because judges, like jurors, are instructed not to read or watch media reports related to the case they preside over so as to avoid bias.
There were only brief mentions of Flynn’s involvement in a FARA case related to Turkey and nothing related to the information unsealed just the day before entered into evidence or the judicial record of the case by the defense or the prosecution in Flynn’s case. The FARA case was also being tried outside of the DC District (DDC), so it wasn’t likely that Sullivan would have been familiar with it otherwise. So, it would be safe to conclude that he could only have gotten the information through extrajudicial sources (i.e. media reports or other sources) given the timing.
Sullivan has repeatedly considered and allowed out-of-court statements and hearsay evidence in direct violation of established rules of evidence, often reading the statements into the judicial record himself, once again contradicting judicial norms. This point is discussed by several well known attorneys, Viva Frei, Robert Barnes, and Nate Brody in the clip shown below.
Sullivan, now worked up into a Stage 4 TDS lather (pages 19-20, 33, & 35-36) asked the lead prosecutor if the government should have considered charging Flynn with “Treason”, a baseless and preposterous question given the evidentiary record. Even Mueller Special Counsel partisan hack prosecutor, Brandon Van Grack, who later had to be removed from the case, had to push back on Sullivan in real time. Sullivan, after taking a break to decompress and gather himself, partially walked back the statement and apologized. But by that time, headlines about his statement had already been plastered across the globe to smear Lt. Gen. Flynn as a “traitor who sold out his country” despite an impeccable 33 year career in the United States Army and who has been described as “the top military intelligence officer of his generation”.
One would wonder what got Sullivan so worked up. Perhaps it was the comments made by Rachel Maddow?
As also noted in Flynn’s motion to disqualify Sullivan (Pgs. 12-13), John Gleeson and a group calling themselves the “Watergate Prosecutors” penned a May 11th, 2020 op-ed in the Washington Post titled “The Flynn Case Isn’t Over Until the Judge Says It’s Over” soon after the May 7th, 2020 Department of Justice (DOJ) motion to dismiss all charges against Flynn “with prejudice”. In the article, Gleeson and his cabal argued:
[Judge Sullivan] can appoint an independent attorney to act as a “friend of the court,” ensuring a full, adversarial inquiry… If necessary, the court can hold hearings to resolve factual discrepancies.
In Flynn’s motion to disqualify it was noted:
Within forty-eight hours, Judge Sullivan took Gleeson’s op-ed as a job application and appointed him to implement Gleeson’s plan.”
The “Watergate Prosecutors” op-ed seemed to build onto a May 8th, 2020 “leaked” conference call between former President Barack Obama and supporters, where he expressed his concern for a breakdown in the “rule of law” because of the DOJ decision to drop the case against Flynn. During the call, Obama stated:
And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.
But, Flynn was never charged with or even alleged to have committed perjury. In fact his guilty plea was to making false statements to federal investigators. It may seem like a small distinction that the average person might mix up, but Obama is an attorney who taught constitutional law at University of Chicago Law School for 12 years. That’s not a mistake a constitutional attorney is going to make.
Also stated in Flynn’s motion to disqualify:
Sullivan instructed Gleeson “to present arguments against the government’s Motion to Dismiss” and General Flynn and further ordered Gleeson to “address whether the Court should issue an Order to Show Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury.”
Sullivan’s use of the term perjury, a crime Flynn was never charged with, nor pled guilty to, suggests that Sullivan was being signaled by Obama through “leaks” to the media and deep state actors, giving the judge a preferred course of action, to which he dutifully complies.
With that knowledge and the benefit of hindsight, there are several chilling moments in the Maddow broadcast of December 17, 2018, where she appears to be passing along a list of instructions to Sullivan on points he should consider and speak to during the hearing and actions he should take. Those actions included, to publicly smear Flynn as someone who had sold out his country and to make sure that Flynn continued to cooperate in the attempt to oust President Trump or face prison time, rather than simply sentence Flynn to probation.
Again, with this in mind, the video simply chilling.
- Full transcript of Flynn Sentencing Hearing from 12/18/2018
- Full transcript of Rachel Maddow Show from 12/17/2018
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