The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed in federal court on Tuesday afternoon yet another batch of exculpatory evidence pertaining to the criminal trial against former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. According to a letter to the federal court overseeing Flynn’s trial sent on behalf of acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Michael Sherwin, the new disclosures include handwritten notes from fired former Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) official Peter Strzok. The notes are believed to have been written in early January of 2017 at the same time that the FBI suddenly re-opened its criminal investigation of Flynn despite the fact that the FBI had failed to find any “derogatory” information against Flynn during the course of its multi-month investigation of him during and after the 2016 presidential campaign.
“As we have previously disclosed, beginning in January 2020, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri has been conducting a review of the Michael T. Flynn investigation,” the DOJ letter states. “The enclosed document was obtained and analyzed by USA EDMO during the course of its review.”
“This page of notes was taken by former Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok,” the letter continues. “While the page itself is undated, we believe that the notes were taken in early January 2017, possibly between January 3 and January 5.”
Because the exculpatory evidence was filed pursuant to a previous protective order from the judge in the case, the handwritten notes themselves have not yet been made publicly available. It is not known when, or if, the judge in the case will ever allow the newly revealed evidence exonerating Flynn to be publicly disclosed.
“What DOJ disclosed today is as explosive as anything that’s come out in Flynn’s case,” a source with direct knowledge of the content of Strzok’s handwritten notes told The Federalist on Tuesday. Earlier this year, DOJ disclosed handwritten documents from Bill Priestap, who previously served as the FBI’s top counterintelligence official, fretting that the FBI investigation against Flynn was designed to “to get him to lie so we can prosecute him or get him fired.” Following those and other disclosures exonerating Flynn, DOJ moved to dismiss the charges against him. The judge in the case has thus far refused, and instead appointed a shadow private prosecutor to argue that Flynn should be imprisoned.
A motion to force the judge to dismiss the charges against Flynn is currently pending in a federal appeals court.
