The Justice Department stated Monday it’s dropping a five-year-long illegal-lobbying case in opposition to Bijan Rafiekian, an ex-business accomplice of former Trump administration nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn.
In a court docket submitting, Justice officers stated they had been shifting to dismiss the case in opposition to Mr. Rafiekian in gentle of an appellate court docket ruling.
“After carefully considering the Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in this case and the principles of federal prosecution, the United States believes it is not in the public interest to pursue the case against defendant Bijan Rafiekian further,” the submitting stated.
In an announcement to CNN, Mark MacDougall, an legal professional for Mr. Rafiekian, stated that the case “should never have been indicted.”
“Mr. Rafiekian has been the target of baseless federal prosecution for the past five years, only because he made the poor decision to be in business with Michael Flynn,” Mr. MacDougall stated. “Along with his family and his lawyers, Bijan is particularly grateful to the Court for its unwavering commitment to equity and for ensuring that justice would be done.”
Mr. Rafiekian was convicted in 2019 on costs of conspiring to behave as an agent of a international authorities, conspiring to make false statements and willful omissions in a Foreign Agents Restriction Act submitting, in addition to appearing as an agent of a international authorities for his unlawful lobbying within the U.S. for the Turkish authorities.
But the conviction was overturned months later and a brand new trial was ordered when Judge Anthony Trenga within the Eastern District of Virginia decided that prosecutors didn’t have sufficient proof to convict him and cited different issues with the case.
Since then, the case has been on attraction for years.
Prosecutors stated within the authentic case that Mr. Rafiekian plotted to garner assist within the authorities to have Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen extradited from the U.S. again to Turkey — a objective of the Turkish authorities as a result of Mr. Gullen had been accused of being part of a failed coup in 2016.
In the summer season of 2016, Mr. Flynn together with Mr. Rafiekian used Flynn Intel Group, Mr. Flynn‘s lobbying firm, to attack Mr. Gulen’s fame. They saved it a secret that the Turkish authorities was paying them to take action, in response to the indictment.
Mr. Flynn wasn’t charged within the case, however was believed to be “Person A” within the indictment. It laid out his lobbying on behalf of Turkey in late 2016, the identical time he was working as an adviser to the Trump marketing campaign.
The case was associated to particular counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s involvement with the 2016 election, and in 2017 Mr. Flynn pleaded responsible to mendacity to investigators as a part of a cooperation cope with Mr. Mueller. President Trump pardoned him because the Justice Department was shifting to withdraw the case in opposition to him.
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