Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every day we bring you insight and analysis into the most important legal news of the day. You can find more episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn may have one goal in replacing his longtime criminal defense attorneys with the politically provocative Sydney Powell,
to win a pardon from his old boss, President Trump. Flynn, a retired U. S. Army general who admitted he lined to government investigators and is awaiting sentencing, fired the legal team that represented him since the case began in joining me as former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer, managing director at
Berkeley Research. So, Jeff tell us a little bit about Sydney Powell's a federal prosecutor, has been in a couple of jurisdictions, has done a fair amount of a federal criminal appellet work, so certainly knows the system, and it is quite familiar with courtroom tactics and is an experience litigated by all definitions. There's been no statement on the
record of why Flynn is changing attorneys. So there's been a lot of speculation about why he's changing attorneys, right, and you know, his prior attorneys certainly knew that the lay of the land and these types of cases and certainly high profile cases as a d C law firm that has certainly been around the block. Flynn's already pled guilty, and the judge just to make sure you're going to reaffirmed that colloquy with that information that Flynn gay that
indeed he was guilty. So it's gonna be hard or impossible for Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea. So at this point you have to ask yourself, why change horses in midstream? Why bring on a new attorney? And that just leads to either a sentencing argument and or you know, a message being sent to the White House for a possible part, And those are really the only two options.
At the news of Flynn's hiring Powell, President Trump tweeted this, General Michael Flynn, the thirty three year war hero who has served with distinction, has not retained a good lawyer. He has retained a great lawyer. Sydney Powell, best wishes and good luck to them both. You know, that's got to be one of the take to say it's one of the stranger tweets. I think that course has already
left the gate. But it's certainly an odd one for the president or any executive branch employee which has charged again with prosecuting crimes, to complement a defense lawyer and wish them well in their case against you know, I'll be at a special council, but an arm of his own Department of Justice. I mean, you have to shake your head at this. It's strange. I don't know of any time in the past where a president has wished
the best of luck to a criminal defense attorney. Well, also, has Trump forgotten that Flynn was the first of his former advisor to cooperate in Mueller's investigation, right, He doesn't really doesn't seem to hold that against him as he does hold it against others. I think Flynn, you know, the testimony coming up is against some of Flynn's business partners, which really, at least as far as we know, doesn't touch the White House, nor Trump uh, nor any of
Trump's close associates or relatives. So while he was the first to plead guilty, and if you remember dialing back Trump. President Trump then said some you know, fairly negative things about Flynn. And now he's kind of come full circle because I think of this lawyer that Flynn has hired, which again she is an experienced prosecutor, she also has
some pretty odd conspiratorial theories. In point of fact, she said on Monday that she'd most likely need a security clearance to review classified materials that were separate from the documents that prosecutors had already handed over, leading to more speculation. Can a new lawyer changed the legal strategy at this point?
At this point is the operative phrase? Probably not unless, uh, the argument is going to be that this new information you need to have a colorable argument why you should get the information is going to be relevant to the plea of guilty. But but again, as we discussed, this judge has already you know, belt and suspended uh General Flynn's guilty polee. He went back and did it again. So the government is required to turn over and any
exculpatory evidence. They're required to turn over any evidence that is relevant to the charge. Right now, we might have a fishing expedition where this lawyer is using General Flynn's case as a as a vehicle, really as a as a shield and a sword to try to get at other information and perhaps embarrass the Mueller prosecutors. Not anything to do with General Flynn's case, but just muddy the waters a little bit, which obviously President Trump would would
would enjoy the watching that. It's former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Kramer, Managing director of Berkeley Research. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg