She looked up and saw the sky was red. Then she asked, "Is it possible the sky really isn't blue?"
-- Example of an absurd question one might ask based on unsound inferences
The notion that
because some piece of information was withheld from the FISC in obtaining authorization to surveil Carter Page, one may infer that Mueller (his team) has withheld information from Flynn is profoundly absurd. From the fact that one set of prosecutors' not including a piece of potentially inconsequential information (information that was widely known among general public, no less) in a FISA application to surveil Carter Page is indicative/suggestive, it does not logically follow that Mueller's team may have withheld exculpatory information from Flynn and his attorneys.
Can one conjure various questions about the integrity of the enforcement of the law in the Flynn case? Of course, but that doesn't make the questions and attendant doubt one raises have any merit as anything other than ways to up the drama attendant to the matter under consideration.
Flynn's attorney may have filed what's called a
"Brady motion." [1] Insofar as Flynn has plead guilty, a very probable reason for the Brady motion is to facilitate his attorney's arguments to mollify Flynn's sentence. While it's possible for a court to allow Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea, it's unlikely. [2] Why do I think it more likely that the order has more to do with sentencing matters/procedures than with the withdrawing of the guilty plea? Because of this waiver that Flynn signed:
Your client agrees to forgo the right to any further discovery or disclosures of information not already provided at the time of the entry of your client's guilty plea. (
Source)
Flynn's agreement to that effect really leaves only to support whatever mitigating content he may care to use to inspire the judge, during
sentencing hearing arguments, to go easy on him. (See section C2 of the earlier linked Brady motion guide.)
Be that as it may, knowing what the specific requests Flynn's attorney made in the Brady motion would shed some light on nature of what they think about the completeness of disclosure Mueller's team exhibited. Curiously, not one organization that's reporting the judge's order pursuant to the Brady motion has also provided a link to or reported the content of a Brady motion.
Some important things to note while imagining that Flynn may file a motion to withdraw his guilty plea:
We live in times when columnists/editorialists can rely quite effectively on the public's general reticence and disdain for conducting their own research to validate or reject the subjective content they read/hear from sources that, in general, ape a given political stance's aspirational notions. For example, partisan editorialists know damn well that Trumpkins are not going to know, much less seek, the kind of objective information about the nature of Brady motions that is even found in this post, to say nothing of more contemplative content on such a thing. Quite simply, they avail themselves of the general public's ignorance and intellectual torpor.
Note:
- The Federalist's Cleveland notes that it's unclear whether the Brady order results from a motion filed by Flynn's attorney(s) or whether it's just a due diligence order.
- No, merely saying one wants to withdraw a guilty plea will not result in one's being permitted to do so. It doesn't work that way because when pleading guilty, judges query defendants to ensure they are not lightly, under duress/coercion, or arbitrarily pleading guilty and the defendant averred under oath not only their guilt, but also that their attestation of guilt derives no such impetus/insouciance. (See: A Change of Heart or a Change of Law - Withdrawing a Guilty Plea under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32(e))
