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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Former National Security

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Speaker 1: Advisor Michael Flynn may have one goal in replacing his

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Speaker 1: longtime criminal defense attorneys with the politically provocative Sydney Powell,

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Speaker 1: to win a pardon from his old boss, President Trump. Flynn,

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Speaker 1: a retired U. S. Army general who admitted he lined

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Speaker 1: to government investigators and is awaiting sentencing, fired the legal

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Speaker 1: team that represented him since the case began in joining

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Speaker 1: me as former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer, managing director at

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Speaker 1: Berkeley Research. So, Jeff tell us a little bit about

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Speaker 1: Sydney Powell's a federal prosecutor, has been in a couple

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Speaker 1: of jurisdictions, has done a fair amount of a federal

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Speaker 1: criminal appellet work, so certainly knows the system, and it

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Speaker 1: is quite familiar with courtroom tactics and is an experience

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Speaker 1: litigated by all definitions. There's been no statement on the

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Speaker 1: record of why Flynn is changing attorneys. So there's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of speculation about why he's changing attorneys, right,

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Speaker 1: and you know, his prior attorneys certainly knew that the

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Speaker 1: lay of the land and these types of cases and

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Speaker 1: certainly high profile cases as a d C law firm

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Speaker 1: that has certainly been around the block. Flynn's already pled guilty,

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Speaker 1: and the judge just to make sure you're going to

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Speaker 1: reaffirmed that colloquy with that information that Flynn gay that

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Speaker 1: indeed he was guilty. So it's gonna be hard or

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Speaker 1: impossible for Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea. So at

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Speaker 1: this point you have to ask yourself, why change horses

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Speaker 1: in midstream? Why bring on a new attorney? And that

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Speaker 1: just leads to either a sentencing argument and or you know,

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Speaker 1: a message being sent to the White House for a

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Speaker 1: possible part, And those are really the only two options.

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Speaker 1: At the news of Flynn's hiring Powell, President Trump tweeted this,

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Speaker 1: General Michael Flynn, the thirty three year war hero who

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Speaker 1: has served with distinction, has not retained a good lawyer.

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Speaker 1: He has retained a great lawyer. Sydney Powell, best wishes

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Speaker 1: and good luck to them both. You know, that's got

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Speaker 1: to be one of the take to say it's one

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Speaker 1: of the stranger tweets. I think that course has already

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Speaker 1: left the gate. But it's certainly an odd one for

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Speaker 1: the president or any executive branch employee which has charged

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Speaker 1: again with prosecuting crimes, to complement a defense lawyer and

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Speaker 1: wish them well in their case against you know, I'll

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Speaker 1: be at a special council, but an arm of his

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Speaker 1: own Department of Justice. I mean, you have to shake

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Speaker 1: your head at this. It's strange. I don't know of

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Speaker 1: any time in the past where a president has wished

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Speaker 1: the best of luck to a criminal defense attorney. Well, also,

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Speaker 1: has Trump forgotten that Flynn was the first of his

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Speaker 1: former advisor to cooperate in Mueller's investigation, right, He doesn't

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Speaker 1: really doesn't seem to hold that against him as he

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Speaker 1: does hold it against others. I think Flynn, you know,

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Speaker 1: the testimony coming up is against some of Flynn's business partners,

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Speaker 1: which really, at least as far as we know, doesn't

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Speaker 1: touch the White House, nor Trump uh, nor any of

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Speaker 1: Trump's close associates or relatives. So while he was the

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Speaker 1: first to plead guilty, and if you remember dialing back Trump.

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Speaker 1: President Trump then said some you know, fairly negative things

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Speaker 1: about Flynn. And now he's kind of come full circle

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Speaker 1: because I think of this lawyer that Flynn has hired,

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Speaker 1: which again she is an experienced prosecutor, she also has

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Speaker 1: some pretty odd conspiratorial theories. In point of fact, she

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Speaker 1: said on Monday that she'd most likely need a security

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Speaker 1: clearance to review classified materials that were separate from the

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Speaker 1: documents that prosecutors had already handed over, leading to more speculation.

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Speaker 1: Can a new lawyer changed the legal strategy at this point?

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Speaker 1: At this point is the operative phrase? Probably not unless, uh,

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Speaker 1: the argument is going to be that this new information

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Speaker 1: you need to have a colorable argument why you should

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Speaker 1: get the information is going to be relevant to the

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Speaker 1: plea of guilty. But but again, as we discussed, this

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Speaker 1: judge has already you know, belt and suspended uh General

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Speaker 1: Flynn's guilty polee. He went back and did it again.

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Speaker 1: So the government is required to turn over and any

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Speaker 1: exculpatory evidence. They're required to turn over any evidence that

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Speaker 1: is relevant to the charge. Right now, we might have

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Speaker 1: a fishing expedition where this lawyer is using General Flynn's

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Speaker 1: case as a as a vehicle, really as a as

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Speaker 1: a shield and a sword to try to get at

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Speaker 1: other information and perhaps embarrass the Mueller prosecutors. Not anything

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Speaker 1: to do with General Flynn's case, but just muddy the

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Speaker 1: waters a little bit, which obviously President Trump would would

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Speaker 1: would enjoy the watching that. It's former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer,

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Speaker 1: Managing director of Berkeley Research. Thanks for listening to the

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

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Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com

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