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Linda Ed

(493 posts)
Tue Jul 23, 2019, 09:14 PM Jul 2019

BREAKING: Michael Flynn's business partner Bijan Kian was convicted on both charges

Source: Marshall Cohen CNN reporter

BREAKING: Michael Flynn's business partner Bijan Kian was convicted on both charges of illegally lobbying for the Turkish government, per @FossumSamuel. Case appeared to be on very thin ice but jurors in Virginia returned 2 guilty verdicts. Case originated from the Mueller probe.



Read more: Link to source



Every case from Mueller has led to a plea or a conviction .

Significant that 2 guilty verdicts were reached WITHOUT the testimony of Michael Flynn. Previously Flynn has been named Co-conspirator..what is the DOJ about to do with this? More corrupt, illegal, treasonous activity proven. this administration is a global criminal syndicate masquerading as a government.
Now, what about Flynn? Or did Barr sweep that one under the rug?

Another Trump Administration employee convicted as a foreign agent. I'm just waiting to find a Trumper who ISN'T a turncoat. Flynn should be in jail too.


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BREAKING: Michael Flynn's business partner Bijan Kian was convicted on both charges (Original Post) Linda Ed Jul 2019 OP
Anyone want to bet on length of jail time? Hoyt Jul 2019 #1
Judge Linda Ed Jul 2019 #6
Maddow was discussing the verdict last night DeminPennswoods Jul 2019 #8
Pardon me? George II Jul 2019 #2
I hear up to 15 years jail time. watoos Jul 2019 #3
Mueller is no longer involved waddirum Jul 2019 #10
Lock him up! Lock him up! PNW-Dem Jul 2019 #4
Bijan Rafiekian - He was Trump's transition advisor CousinIT Jul 2019 #5
From the DoJ PR nitpicker Jul 2019 #7
Flynn made a bad gamble. marble falls Jul 2019 #9

Linda Ed

(493 posts)
6. Judge
Wed Jul 24, 2019, 12:42 AM
Jul 2019

The judge pretty much already accused him of treason. I could see five to ten years easy, maybe more. Let's hope.

DeminPennswoods

(15,290 posts)
8. Maddow was discussing the verdict last night
Wed Jul 24, 2019, 05:23 AM
Jul 2019

She brought up reports that the prosecutors might be thinking about changing their recommendation of no jail time for Flynn.

 

watoos

(7,142 posts)
3. I hear up to 15 years jail time.
Tue Jul 23, 2019, 10:11 PM
Jul 2019

Flynn got a new Fox News lawyer who convinced him not to cooperate with Mueller in the hopes that Kian would not be convicted. Flynn is waiting to be sentenced for his own crimes, I wonder if Mueller is going to ask for leniency now that Flynn stabbed him in the back? Flynn's sentence just got a bit longer I believe.

Fucking traitors who were picked by trump.

CousinIT

(9,257 posts)
5. Bijan Rafiekian - He was Trump's transition advisor
Tue Jul 23, 2019, 10:32 PM
Jul 2019
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/23/trump-adviser-bijan-rafiekian-convicted-1428176

Trump transition adviser convicted on foreign-agent charges

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted Bijan Rafiekian, a former business partner of Michael Flynn, on a pair of foreign-agent felony charges stemming from work the two men did for Turkish interests during the final months of the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.

The verdicts, returned by jurors in Alexandria, Va., after a weeklong trial and only about four hours of deliberation, amount to a belated courtroom victory for special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated the $600,000 lobbying and public relations contract at the heart of the case and then handed the matter off to other federal prosecutors after Flynn’s guilty plea to a false-statement charge in 2017.

Rafiekian, 67, faces up to 15 years in prison on the two felony counts against him: acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the U.S., and conspiracy to violate that law as well as to submit false statements to the Justice Department in a foreign-agent filing. Defendants are typically sentenced in accord with federal sentencing guidelines that result in far less than the maximum.

Flynn, who would go on to serve 24 days as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, had been expected to be a key witness at Rafiekian’s trial, offering testimony that would incriminate his former partner in a scheme to avoid disclosing that the Flynn Intel Group’s lobbying and public relations effort was actually directed and controlled by Turkish government officials.

nitpicker

(7,153 posts)
7. From the DoJ PR
Wed Jul 24, 2019, 04:59 AM
Jul 2019
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edva/pr/jury-convicts-flynn-intel-group-founder-conspiring-act-undisclosed-agent-turkey

(snip)
According to court records and evidence presented at trial, Bijan Rafiekian, 67, of San Juan Capistrano, California, along with his co-conspirator, Kamil Ekim Alptekin, 42, of Istanbul, a Turkish national with close ties to the highest levels of the Government of Turkey, were involved in a conspiracy to covertly influence United States politicians and public opinion against a Turkish national, Fethullah Gulen, who is an imam, writer, and political figure living in the United States. The Government of Turkey had filed two extradition requests for Gulen, and has been trying to convince the Department of Justice to extradite Gulen back to Turkey since 2015. The plot included using the Flynn Intel Group (FIG), a company founded by Rafiekian and Michael T. Flynn, which provided services based upon Flynn’s national security expertise.

According to court documents, the purpose of the conspiracy was to use FIG to delegitimize the Turkish citizen in the eyes of the American public and United States politicians, with the goal of obtaining his extradition, which was meeting resistance at the U.S. Department of Justice. At the same time, the conspirators sought to conceal that the Government of Turkey was directing the work. However, not only was Rafiekian told by Alptekin that Turkish cabinet-level officials had approved the budget for the project, but Alptekin also told Rafiekian that he provided the Turkish officials updates on the work. Rafiekian understood that Alptekin was relaying the Turkish officials’ directions on the work to Rafiekian, Flynn, and others at FIG.

According to court documents, the scheme included using a Dutch shell company, Inovo, owned by Alptekin to act as FIG’s “client.” FIG was paid $600,000 in three installments from an account in Turkey in Alptekin’s name. After Alptekin made the payments to FIG, FIG kicked back 20 percent of the payments to Alptekin’s company in the Netherlands, with two such kickbacks being made.
(snip)
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