Michael Flynn's lawyers say newly uncovered notes from ex-FBI official Peter Strzok show that then-FBI director James Comey saw Flynn's calls with Russia's ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition in the United States as "legit".
Despite that, they say that then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed for an investigation into Flynn.
"Yesterday, the Government produced further stunning and exculpatory evidence, previously withheld from General Flynn, showing that Director Comey himself and the highest levels of the Obama Administration had the transcripts of Flynn's phone calls with officials of other countries and knew General Flynn's calls were lawful and proper", Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell writes.
Acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin told Flynn's lawyers that the notes were penned by Strzok and were likely taken between 3 and 5 January 2017.
"Strzok's notes [...] reveal that former President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and apparently Susan Rice discussed the transcripts of Flynn's calls and how to proceed against him", Powell continues. "Mr Obama himself directed that 'the right people' investigate General Flynn."
Powell went on to say that Biden was apparently behind the idea of the Logan Act, which became "an admitted pretext" for the investigation against Flynn. This contradicts Biden's earlier statement that he knew nothing about Flynn's investigation.
Pictures of Strzok's notes were also shared on social media, though they are hard to read due to the rough handwriting and include shorthand instead of full names.
According to Strzok's notes detailing the January 5 meeting, Joe Biden ("VP") explicitly mentioned using the Logan Act to go after Flynn, and Obama explicitly directed James Comey ("D") and Sally Yates ("DAG") to investigate Flynn and use "the right people" to go after him. pic.twitter.com/rboF4ju4ks
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 24, 2020
The notes were uncovered just as a US federal appeals court ordered the dismissal of criminal charges against Flynn, with President Trump welcoming the move.
The redacted transcripts of Flynn's calls with Kislyak, declassified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, do not show a crime committed on his part, or evidence of any "collusion" between him and the Russian ambassador.
Retired Army Gen. Flynn, 61, is one of the few Trump associates convicted as part of US state investigations into an alleged conspiracy between the US president and Russia, the so-called "Russiagate", which led to an almost two-year probe into the allegations, but no evidence of collusion was found between President Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.
At the same time, Flynn was accused of making "false and fraudulent statements" to the FBI regarding the nature of the contacts between the Trump campaign and Kislyak amid the 2016 election campaign.
Despite Flynn pleading guilty in December 2017, in mid-January, he withdrew his guilty plea because of the government's "bad faith, vindictiveness, and breach of the plea agreement", as he put it.
