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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: President Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn says prosecutors

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Speaker 1: pressured him to lie under oath and he wants to

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Speaker 1: withdraw his guilty plea, joining me as Andrew Harris, Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Legal reporter, this is a surprise move. Tell us what's

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Speaker 1: happening here. His complaint now is that the prosecution was

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Speaker 1: bargaining in bad faith and that as an unstated part

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Speaker 1: of his plea, that they were going to have him

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Speaker 1: basically perjured himself at the trial of his former business partner,

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Speaker 1: which was held back in June at a federal courthouse

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Speaker 1: in Alexandria, Virginia. Ultimately, the parties could not agree on

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Speaker 1: what it was that Flynn was going to say. Prosecutors

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Speaker 1: didn't use him as a witness, and while they want

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Speaker 1: a conviction, the trial court judge overturned that conviction on

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Speaker 1: a post trial ruling. He was the first person in

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Speaker 1: the Trump orbit to plead guilty and makeup plea with

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Speaker 1: the government, and he admitted his guilt in court. How

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Speaker 1: does he get around that, Well, that's a very good question. June.

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Speaker 1: Way back in December seventeen, in a prepackaged plea deal,

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Speaker 1: Mike Flynn went before a federal judge in Washington and

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Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts

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Speaker 1: with then Russian Ambassador to the US, Sergey Kisleak. What

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Speaker 1: he had failed to disclose with and was conversations he

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Speaker 1: had had with Kisleak on behalf of the Trump transition

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Speaker 1: team in between the election and the time that the

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Speaker 1: president took office. Subsequently, that judge who took the plea

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Speaker 1: recused himself in the case for unstated reasons, and a

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Speaker 1: second judge came on the bench, and at the time

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Speaker 1: that Mike Flynn was to be sentenced in December, his

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Speaker 1: now former attorneys raised issues as to whether or not

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Speaker 1: he was lulled into a false sense of security by

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Speaker 1: those agents that questioned him, prompting the new judge and

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Speaker 1: it's sullivan, to ask Flynn a new whether or not

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Speaker 1: he still believed he was guilty and intended to plead guilty,

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Speaker 1: and so Flynn doubled down and reaffirmed his guilt in December.

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Speaker 1: Subsequent to that, Mike Flynn changed lawyers, and the new

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Speaker 1: lawyer had a new strategy forgetting her client off the hook,

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Speaker 1: which has basically been to yield nothing and question everything,

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Speaker 1: which is how we get to today. So what exactly

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Speaker 1: is his lawyer saying now? The new lawyer, Sydney pal

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Speaker 1: contends that Mike Flynn did not lie to the federal investigators.

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Speaker 1: She's questioning the notes they took from the interview. She

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Speaker 1: says that the notes themselves belie what Flynn actually said. Previously,

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Speaker 1: she moved to have the entire case thrown out for

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Speaker 1: prosecutorial misconduct, accusing prosecutors of withholding which she claimed was

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Speaker 1: exculpatory evidence. Judge Sullivan rejected that motion. So she is

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Speaker 1: in effect taking a second bite of the apple here

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Speaker 1: by repackaging some of her prior allegations in this new

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Speaker 1: argument that they acted in bad faith try to suborn perjury,

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Speaker 1: and that he would not have ever taken this deal

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Speaker 1: in the first place, and again underscore that she maintains

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Speaker 1: he is innocent despite the two prior pleas of guilty.

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Speaker 1: Hasn't he been cooperating with prosecutors through the years and

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Speaker 1: giving them information he had been up until the point

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Speaker 1: where they were preparing for the trial of his former

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Speaker 1: business partner vijon Kion, who was accused of illegally lobbying

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Speaker 1: on behalf of the Turkish government, conduct that Flynn himself

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Speaker 1: admitted to, although he was in charge with that as

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Speaker 1: an offense when he pleaded guilty way back in December

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Speaker 1: twenties seventeen. But negotiations or discussions depending on how you

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Speaker 1: want to characterize it as to what he was willing

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Speaker 1: to say under oath in court broke down, and that

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Speaker 1: was pretty much the end of Flynn's cooperation with prosecutors.

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Speaker 1: So is all this maneuvering by the defense really because

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Speaker 1: initially prosecutors were not going to ask for Flynn to

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Speaker 1: serve any time, but that changed when he stopped cooperating.

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Speaker 1: That's correct. Initially the plea deal was that prosecutors were

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Speaker 1: content with a probationary sentence. When the coopera ration fell apart,

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Speaker 1: they reverse course and ask Judge Sullivan to impose a

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Speaker 1: sentence about the six months imprisonment. How is the prosecution

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Speaker 1: reacting to this latest for it by the defense? We

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Speaker 1: have yet to see their opposition papers. They consented to

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Speaker 1: a postponement of flynn sense saying, which is supposed to

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Speaker 1: be this Tuesday, they January has now been put off

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Speaker 1: from to the back end of February while they litigate

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Speaker 1: this newest issue. So what's next. There's going to be

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Speaker 1: some exchange of papers. The next court date is February,

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Speaker 1: where presumably either at or by that day, Judge Sullivan

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Speaker 1: will hear argument and resolve this question as to whether

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Speaker 1: or not General Flynn can withdraw his plea. If he can,

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Speaker 1: there may be a trial if the prosecution wants to

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Speaker 1: pursue it further, or conceivably they could drop the charges

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Speaker 1: all that that's probably unlikely, or ultimately there may be

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Speaker 1: a pardon from President Trump, who has expressed his sympathies

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Speaker 1: for his one time national security. It seems as if

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Speaker 1: this is such a well known case, prosecutors are not

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Speaker 1: going to want to allow someone to just take back

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Speaker 1: their guilty plea and renege on their deal. And if

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Speaker 1: this does go to trial, how would he fight the charges?

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Speaker 1: He would have to fight the evidence basically by disputing

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Speaker 1: what the evidence says versus what he said. The way

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Speaker 1: this works is when the FBI questions a witness, they

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Speaker 1: take notes. Those notes are transformed or memorialized in documents

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Speaker 1: called three O two's and Mike Flynn's lawyers are arguing

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Speaker 1: that those three O two's do not correctly reflect what

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Speaker 1: he said. You mentioned a pardon. That seems to be

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Speaker 1: the direction the defense is going in with this odd strategy.

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Speaker 1: They've certainly dug a somewhat deeper hole for their client, who,

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Speaker 1: as you noted, was looking at no jail time, and

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Speaker 1: now prosecutors are are seeking six months jail time or

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Speaker 1: up to six months jail time. A pardon would certainly

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Speaker 1: viscerate that request if it were to come to pass.

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Speaker 1: Sidney Powel, Mike Flynn's lawyer, told me what she's really

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Speaker 1: seeking is the truth her words. Okay, we'll leave it there.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Andrew. That's Andrew Harris, Bloomberg Legal reporter. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and

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Speaker 1: listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg