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WASHINGTON – President Trump on Wednesday pardoned his former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat and whose Attorney General William P. Barr had tried to close.
“I have the great honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has obtained a full pardon”, Mr. Trump written on twitter.
Presidential pardon ends Mr. Flynn’s long legal saga. The Justice Department decided in the spring to withdraw the charges against him after a public campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies, but the judge in charge of the case, Emmet G. Sullivan, had delayed the request for a review of its legitimacy.
Although Mr. Trump had said months ago that he was “strongly” considering forgiving Mr. Flynn and was planning to do so after losing the election, Mr. Barr’s intervention had hinted at the possibility that his administration could end the pursuit of a presidential favorite without requiring Mr. Trump to take explicit political responsibility for this act.
But as the case lingered – first delayed by Mr. Flynn’s unsuccessful attempt to get a court of appeal to prevent Judge Sullivan from reviewing the basis for Mr. Barr’s decision, then by d other weeks of inaction by the judge – Mr. Trump has finally moved. to do it anyway.
Mr Flynn was the only White House official to be convicted in the Trump-Russia investigation which was carried out by Special Advocate Robert S. Mueller III. Under Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr, the administration has attempted to discredit and dismantle this investigation. Mr Trump also commuted the sentence of his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. for seven felonies in a case brought by prosecutors working for Mr Mueller.
John Gleeson, a former federal judge and Mafia prosecutor appointed by Justice Sullivan to criticize the Justice Department’s attempt to drop the case against Mr. Flynn, argued that the alleged basis for the claim had failed meaningless and seemed to cover a politically motivated favor. to a presidential favorite. He had said that Judge Sullivan should condemn Mr. Flynn instead – or that Mr. Trump should just forgive him.
In doing so, Mr. Trump has now referred to this proceeding, which means Judge Sullivan will most likely dismiss the case. The pardon rules out the possibility of a new legal confrontation over whether the judge could convict an accused who had pleaded guilty even though the Justice Department no longer wanted to pursue the case.
Mr. Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and decorated lieutenant general, was an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s campaign. He was rewarded when Mr Trump appointed him national security adviser shortly after winning the 2016 election, ignoring warnings from President Barack Obama, who expressed concerns about the management of the intelligence agency by Mr. Flynn.
Mr Flynn was also part of a group of Trump campaign associates with ties to Russian officials that the FBI investigated at the start of the counterintelligence investigation he launched in July 2016 to try to understand the extent of Russia’s covert meddling in the campaign and whether Trump’s campaign figures knew about it or cooperated with it, knowingly or not.
It appeared that Mr. Flynn was lying to his colleagues about conversations he had in December 2016 with Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. In the appeals, Flynn urged Moscow not to escalate in response to sanctions imposed by the outgoing Obama administration for Russia’s covert interference in the election to aid Mr. Trump, and raised the possibility that the new administration Trump is working more closely with Russia.
The lying model has raised new suspicions about Mr. Flynn. The FBI sent agents to question him at the White House, although deliberations with the Justice Department on whether to tell Mr. Trump’s new White House advice first were not yet resolved. Notes from a meeting related to this interview suggest that perhaps one of the purposes of the interview was to see if Mr. Flynn would lie to FBI agents again – as he did.
Despite Mr. Flynn’s termination, Mr. Trump called on then-FBI Director James B. Comey to end any investigation of Mr. Flynn. Details of the president’s request became public months later after Mr. Trump sacked Mr. Comey and helped push Mr. Mueller to be appointed special adviser.
Although Mr. Trump initially distanced himself from Mr. Flynn, the president subsequently began to denigrate the Flynn case as part of his broader attacks on the Russia investigation as a “hoax,” a ” witch hunt ”and a state sabotage plot. him.
Over time, Mr. Flynn’s case has become a cause for the right-wing media. Although Mr Flynn pleaded guilty – in a deal also to resolve his liability for working for Turkey without registering as a foreign agent – he then turned the tide and stopped working for Turkey. cooperate with prosecutors.
Mr Flynn hired a new lawyer, Sidney Powell, who later rose to prominence for his appearances on Fox News denigrating the Russia investigation, and he ultimately sought to withdraw his plea.
Ms Powell has been attached in recent weeks to Trump’s legal team trying to undo his loss in the 2020 presidential election, pushing a baseless conspiracy theory that Mr Trump won by a landslide but fraudulent election software instead gave the president the victory – elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. After particularly fierce accusations that even Republican officials were involved in a payment plan, Trump’s team disowned him .
At the start of her portrayal of Mr. Flynn, Ms. Powell wrote to Mr. Barr, stressing the need to keep the communication a secret, and advised him on a strategy to replicate a Senator’s 2008 prosecution model – also in front of him. Justice Sullivan. – for which the Ministry of Justice sought to close the case after conviction but before conviction on the basis of a finding of misconduct by the prosecution.
She asked Mr Barr to appoint an outside prosecutor to go through the file for anything that prosecutors should have turned over to the defense. After Justice Sullivan dismissed the conspiracy theories of prosecution misconduct that Ms Powell had put forward, Mr Barr followed her suggestion and opened a review.
The examiner appointed by Mr. Barr produced documents showing that the FBI had been aggressive in deciding to question Mr. Flynn. While the Justice Department did not say that failure to hand over the files earlier was fault, it cited them as allowing Barr to drop the lawsuit.
The justification given by the department centered on the idea that Mr. Flynn’s lies to the FBI were not crimes because they were irrelevant to a legitimate investigation. One of the files showed that the FBI had decided to close its investigation into whether Mr. Flynn was a Russian agent before the question arose as to why he was lying to his colleagues about his calls with the ambassador.
This rationale for dropping the charges has been widely criticized by Mr. Gleeson and others since the FBI needs little legal basis to conduct a voluntary interview, and because the mystery of Mr. Flynn’s lies to his colleagues about of his interactions with the Ambassador, in part regarding sanctions for Russian interference in the election, obviously seemed relevant to the larger Trump-Russia investigation.
Mr. Gleeson argued that the department was giving Mr. Flynn a special favor because that’s what Mr. Trump wanted, and urged Justice Sullivan not to allow the judiciary to be used as a cover for a politically motivated intervention – that’s what the power of grace is for. Ms Powell, for her part, has portrayed the case against her client as a corrupt and politically motivated plot and accused Judge Sullivan of being biased.
Mr. Trump exercised his clemency power generously, granting clemency not only to Mr. Stone, but also to figures such as former New York Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, the former Governor of Illinois Rod R. Blagojevich, financier Michael R. Milken and others convicted of fraud, corruption and other crimes.
Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.
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