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Flynn’s criminal charge had hovered over the Trump presidency and overshadowed nearly every major scandal Trump has faced, as Flynn’s lies to the FBI occurred days after the start of the new administration and involved his contacts with transition with Russia, which opened the door to warmer relations with Russia. a country that had just interfered in the US presidential election.
The pardon also ends a three-year legal saga where, more recently, Flynn’s charge was stayed in an appeals court in a separation of powers fight, while the Justice Department tried to file the case. The trial court judge dealing with the case had not taken action since the appeal struggle and was considering dismissing the case or sentencing Flynn. The Justice Department said Flynn should never have been investigated by the FBI and that his lies about them in January 2017 were irrelevant, while Flynn retracted his guilty confession.
A Justice Department official said on Wednesday that they were not consulted on a pardon and instead were informed before the president exercised his pardon power for Flynn. The department would have preferred to see the case resolved with a referral to court, the official added.
The judge in the Flynn case, Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court in DC, may also have questions in the case, as may the upcoming Justice Department in the Biden administration. In addition to pleading guilty to one charge, Flynn admitted to lying about his lobbying for Turkey, but was not charged with the crime. During the legal process, Sullivan also asked extensive questions about the lawyer around the case, and it is not clear whether the judge will attempt to continue his investigations.
Grace is likely to play into Trump’s legacy, as he continues to denounce democratic institutions and has used Flynn as a political symbol to rally his supporters. Trump’s critics have claimed for months that the administration has abused its power and undermined the rule of law to help former advisers and friends.
Flynn’s pardon is the second presidential act of leniency linked to the prosecution of the president’s advisers. The first was Roger Stone.
“It is a great honor for me to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a full pardon. Congratulations to [Flynn] and his wonderful family, I know you are now having a truly fantastic Thanksgiving! Trump’s tweet said Wednesday afternoon.
Flynn, apparently in response, tweeted a reference to a Bible verse from the book of Jeremiah: “” They will fight against you but not defeat you, for I am with you and will save you, “declares the Lord.”
Calls to Russia
In the past two years, the retired lieutenant general has appeared twice before federal judges and admitted, under oath, that he was guilty of lying to the FBI while serving as a security adviser. national when asked about his appeals in December 2016 with the then-Russian Ambassador. But in recent months, Flynn has proclaimed his innocence, claiming he was duped and positioned himself as a right-wing martyr in Trump’s fight against Obama-era “deep state” leaders and officials of the intelligence.
The Department of Justice has never admitted this. Instead, the department has added fuel in recent months to Flynn and Trump’s claims that he was falsely investigated and tried to dismiss his accusation. Former prosecutors and law enforcement officials have widely criticized this legal approach, calling Barr Trump’s politically corrupt lackey atop the Justice Department.
The Flynn affair from the start has raised questions about Trump’s apparent appeasement towards Russia.
After the elections at the end of 2016, Flynn spoke on the phone several times to then Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, asking Russia to “reciprocate moderately” the US sanctions for its interference in the elections and to oppose the Obama administration in an upcoming vote at the United Nations. . He had discussed the calls with Trump’s transition officials, found Special Advocate Robert Mueller, and admitted not documenting the talks because they could have been perceived as Trump’s transition team hampering foreign policy of the Obama administration.
“Let’s keep this at the level of killing (sic); then when we get in, we’ll have a better conversation where we’re going to go regarding our relationship,” Flynn told Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, according to transcripts of the appeals made by the administration this year.
When FBI agents questioned Flynn about the West Wing calls in January 2017, Flynn falsely said he did not make the Russian demands.
In his guilty plea, Flynn also admitted that he failed to notify the Department of Justice, which regulates foreign agents in the United States, to lobby for Turkey in 2016. He was not charged with the crime. , although the ministry has made it clear previously that it could have been.
The aftermath of Flynn’s calls with Kislyak, including Trump’s encouragement to then-FBI Director James Comey to take it easy with Flynn, contributed to Mueller’s eventual appointment as special adviser, a development that fueled Trump’s anger for years.
Mueller eventually found out that Russia was seeking to help Trump win in 2016 by leaking stolen Democratic documents, that Trump’s political operation had embraced these leaks, and that Trump had repeatedly tried to thwart the Russia investigation a once became president.
Flynn’s departure from the White House in 2017, days after the FBI interview, was not just due to his lies to agents. He also lied about his contacts with Kislyak to senior administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence. Senior national security officials at the time believed the lies opened up the possibility for Russia to blackmail Flynn.
“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” Trump tweeted in December 2017. “He pleaded guilty to these lies. It’s a shame because his actions during the transition were legal. There was nothing. to hide! ”
Long road for Flynn
Flynn made an agreement with the Mueller team to cooperate in late 2017, when this investigation began. With this step, he potentially avoided more serious criminal charges and spent hours with investigators sharing details of Trump campaign and transition contacts with the Russians, as well as Trump’s actions to potentially impede the survey on Russia in 2017.
But as his case drifted away from a possible brief jail term, Flynn fired his lawyers, replacing them with a defense team who worked to unravel his plea in court and publicly campaigned for the pardon.
In the end, Flynn was granted pardon after his team attacked the FBI, Mueller’s prosecutors and his previous defense team in court – even after a federal judge rejected Flynn’s team theory. that the FBI had tricked him. Trump had also incorporated regular tweets about Flynn into his continued slurs on Comey, the FBI, the courts, and “Obamagate,” a loose right-wing conspiracy theory nickname.
By April, Flynn’s attorneys had filed hundreds of pages of arguments in court urging a further investigation of the officials. They had made public, for example, a handwritten note from a senior FBI official in 2017 suggesting that if Flynn did not admit to a crime of bad negotiation with Russia during the transition and lied to the FBI instead, the ministry Justice could sue or “get him fired.” While not a legally inappropriate approach, the FBI official’s brutal planning helped bring more attention to Flynn’s case, as did the findings of other investigators that the FBI had made missteps in its initial handling of the Russian investigation.
The Justice Department then sent several other internal documents without context to Flynn’s team, allowing private lawyers to make them public and draw attention to their case. Some have mentioned Joe Biden, although Barr has publicly announced that Biden is not under investigation.
Sullivan held a hearing in September regarding the case and was still reviewing those documents. At the hearing, he asked Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, how much she had spoken with the president of the case. She replied that they had spoken but she had asked Trump not to forgive Flynn.
In public, she and Trump had said they wanted the legal system to erase Flynn’s name. But that seemed to become more unlikely with Trump’s loss of the presidency.
In recent weeks, Powell has been one of the strongest supporters of Trump’s conspiracy theories on voter fraud, which have been repeatedly rejected by judges. Although the Trump campaign has distanced itself from Powell, Trump tweeted about his help in tackling his electoral loss, and his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis posed in a photo with Flynn that Ellis posted online. Powell also spoke at a press conference alongside Giuliani a week ago, vowing to fight for Trump.
Trump’s approach to Flynn’s case has also clearly changed in the three years since his plea.
“What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never happen to a citizen of the United States again!” Trump tweeted in April. Pence in late April also said he now felt more inclined to believe that Flynn had not intentionally lied to him.
Trump allies celebrate
Several Trump allies celebrated the news of Flynn’s forgiveness.
Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows praised Flynn and called it “a well-deserved day for an American patriot.” Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy said the president “was right to forgive the respected three-star general.” And Republican Rep from Ohio Jim Jordan simply tweeted, “God bless Michael Flynn!”
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement that the president “abused the power of pardon to reward Michael Flynn, who chose loyalty to Trump over loyalty to his country.”
“There is no doubt that a president has broad power to grant pardons, but when they are deployed to protect themselves, their family and associates from a criminal investigation, it is a corruption of intent to the author, “the California Democrat said, adding,” It’s no surprise that Trump stepped out just as he walked in – twisted all the way. “
While the president has continued to falsely insist publicly that he won the presidential election rather than Biden, Flynn’s pardon is a sign that Trump understands his tenure is coming to an end. He is expected to issue a series of additional pardons before leaving the White House, according to several sources close to the discussion.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Christina Carrega, Pamela Brown, Jim Acosta and Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.
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