{"id":832,"date":"2020-12-02T20:25:45","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T20:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=131012"},"modified":"2020-12-02T20:25:45","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T20:25:45","slug":"amicus-brief-in-us-v-flynn-challenges-trumps-pardon-of-flynn-as-corrupt-and-unconstitutional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/02\/amicus-brief-in-us-v-flynn-challenges-trumps-pardon-of-flynn-as-corrupt-and-unconstitutional\/","title":{"rendered":"Amicus Brief in US v. Flynn Challenges Trump\u2019s Pardon of Flynn as Corrupt and Unconstitutional"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON – Free Speech For People, a national nonpartisan organization, is challenging President Trump\u2019s pardon of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn as \u201cself-dealing\u201d and unconstitutional.  <\/p>\n

Free Speech For People filed a motion on December 1, 2020, requesting permission to file an amicus brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where Flynn has twice pleaded guilty and was awaiting sentencing for lying to investigators in an effort to protect Trump.  The proposed amicus brief lays out a four-part argument as to why the court should declare Trump\u2019s pardon of Flynn invalid under the US Constitution. The president\u2019s \u201cExecutive Grant of Clemency<\/a>\u201d purports to pardon Flynn for a broad range of vaguely-described misconduct, including not only the felony charges of making false statements to federal investigators in January of 2017, but also other unspecified offenses, such as \u201cany and all possible offenses arising out of facts and circumstances \u2026 in any manner related to the investigation of the Special Counsel.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe President\u2019s constitutional power to pardon is broad, but it is not absolute,\u201d the proposed amicus brief reads. \u201cThe original public meaning of the Faithful Execution Clauses [of the Constitution] is that they limit the President\u2019s power by requiring him to exercise it in good faith in the public interest\u2014not corruptly in his self-interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

The brief argues that the Court should examine the \u201csubstantial evidence\u201d indicating that \u201cthe \u2018Executive Grant of Clemency\u2019 issued by President Trump to the defendant was not made in good faith for the public interest, but rather for reasons of self-dealing, self-protection, or other bad faith personal purposes, and therefore violated the Faithful Execution Clauses.\u201d  Citing public statements of Trump and the White House, as well as Trump\u2019s history of abusing the pardon power to insulate himself from testimony of his co-conspirators and his retaliation against co-conspirators who testify truthfully, the brief argues that this is yet another example of Trump seeking to reward a co-conspirator for protecting him and to assure his continued protection from any future investigation or prosecution.   <\/p>\n

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Free Speech For People is requesting that the Court inquire further into the extent to which the President\u2019s grant of clemency was made in his own narrow self-interest, rather than any plausible conception of the public interest. If so, it argues the Court should deny the Justice Department\u2019s request to dismiss the case and instead continue with sentencing. <\/p>\n

Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan will decide whether to allow the amicus brief. <\/p>\n

Read the motion here.<\/p>\n

Read the amicus brief here.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 Free Speech For People, a national nonpartisan organization, is challenging President Trump\u2019s pardon of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn as \u201cself-dealing\u201d and unconstitutional.\u00a0\u00a0 Free Speech\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}