A federal judge has nixed a sentencing hearing for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser to President Donald Trump.
District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan canceled the hearing on Nov. 27, together with the deadlines for both parties to submit their sentencing memos, a day after both the prosecution and the defense requested so.
In their joint motion, the parties agreed that the sentencing should wait until Sullivan decides on Flynn’s earlier request for the judge to compel prosecutors to hand over exculpatory information.
The parties also noted that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to release in the next several weeks a report on his investigation into an FBI surveillance warrant on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide.
“The parties expect that the report of this investigation will examine topics related to several matters raised by the defendant,” the motion says.
It isn’t clear which matters specifically the parties expect to be addressed in the report.
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to one count of lying to the FBI. He’s been expected to receive a light sentence, including no prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.
In June, he fired his lawyers and hired Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor, who has since accused the government of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late. She has also argued that the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place.
The prosecutors say all relevant information has already been provided to the defense and that the FBI had a “sufficient and appropriate basis” for interviewing Flynn.
The investigation failed to establish that anybody from the Trump team colluded with the Russian meddling, the report stated.
Powell argued that the investigation of Flynn lacked a “legitimate basis” and that higher echelons of the FBI orchestrated an “ambush” interview that was intended “to set up Mr. Flynn on a criminal false statement charge from the get-go.”
She’s also pointed out that the report from the interview took unusually long to complete and was edited to add significant information that seemed nowhere to be found in the interviewing agents’ handwritten notes.
Powell has also alleged that the prosecutors deliberately delayed the release to the defense of text messages of one of the FBI agents, then-Deputy Associate Director Peter Strzok, which showed his strong animus against Trump.