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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, ending a year of prosecution in the Russia probe that saw Flynn twice plead guilty to lying to the FBI , then overturn before the Department of Justice intervenes to return his Case.
“It is a great honor for me to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has received a full pardon,” Trump tweeted. “Congratulations to @GenFlynn and her wonderful family, I know you are now having a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”
The pardon, which comes in the final weeks of Trump’s single tenure, is part of a larger effort by the president to overturn the results of an investigation into Russia that followed his administration and resulted in criminal charges against a half a dozen associates. It comes just months after the President commuted the sentence of another associate, Roger Stone, days before he showed up to jail.
A justice ministry official said the ministry had not been consulted on the pardon and learned of the plan on Wednesday. But the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, noted that the president has the legal authority to forgive Flynn.
The move is likely to energize supporters who took Flynn as a famous cause and rallied around the retired Army Lt. Gen. as the victim of what they claim to be an unfair lawsuit, even though Flynn has twice admitted his guilt. Trump has repeatedly spoken warmly about Flynn, who has previously been praised by prosecutors for Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a model cooperator in their investigation of Russia’s ties to the 2016 Trump campaign.
In a statement, Flynn’s family thanked Trump “for having answered our prayers and the prayers of a nation” by delivering grace.
Democrats blasted the president’s decision, calling it undeserved and unprincipled.
Flynn’s pardon is “an act of grave corruption and a brazen abuse of power,” said House of Commons Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“The President’s Catalysts have built an elaborate narrative in which Trump and Flynn are victims and the Constitution is subject to the President’s whims,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said in a statement. “Americans firmly rejected this nonsense when they voted against President Trump. “
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said the forgiveness came as no surprise, but was twisted nonetheless.
“Flynn has pleaded guilty to these lies twice. A forgiveness from Trump does not erase this truth, no matter how Trump and his allies try to suggest otherwise, ”he said.
Forgiveness is the last step in a case defined by twists and turns. The most dramatic happened in May when the Justice Department abruptly decided to close the case., insisting that Flynn should never have been questioned by the FBI in the first place, only for U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to resist the request and appoint a former judge to argue against the federal government’s position and assess whether Flynn should be held criminally disregarding perjury.
That former judge, John Gleeson, said the Justice Department’s request for dismissal was an abuse of power and the grounds for dropping the case were constantly evolving. and “clearly pretextual”.
As Sullivan refused to immediately dismiss the case, Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, sought to bypass the judge by asking a federal appeals court to order him to drop the case. A three-judge panel did just that, but the full court overturned that decision and sent the case back to Sullivan.
At a hearing in September, Powell told the judge she discussed the Flynn case with Trump, but also said she didn’t want a pardon – likely because she wanted it to be justified before the courts.
Powell has emerged separately in recent weeks as a public face of Trump’s efforts to reverse the results of his electoral defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, but Trump’s legal team ultimately distanced themselves from him after advancing a streak unsubstantiated conspiracy allegations.
Pardon spares Flynn the possibility of a jail term, which Sullivan could have imposed had he ultimately decided to deny the Department of Justice’s dismissal request. This request was made after a review of the case by a St. Louis federal prosecutor specially appointed by Attorney General William Barr.
The issue at issue in this case was an FBI interview with Flynn that took place in January 2017, days after Trump’s inauguration.
Flynn admitted to lying during this interview, saying that he had not discussed with the then Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, the sanctions which had just been imposed on Russia for the electoral interference of the outgoing Obama administration. During this conversation, Flynn urged Kislyak for Russia to be “balanced” in response to the punitive measures, and assured him “we can have a better conversation” about relations between the two countries after Trump becomes president. .
The conversation alarmed the FBI, which at the time was investigating the coordination of the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election outcome. Additionally, White House officials have publicly stated that Flynn and Kislyak have not discussed sanctions, which the FBI knew to be false.
But last May, the Justice Department abruptly reversed its position on the case.
He claimed the FBI had no basis for questioning Flynn about Kislyak as statements he might have made were irrelevant to the larger FBI counterintelligence investigation. He cited internal FBI notes showing that agents had planned to close their investigation of Flynn weeks earlier.
Flynn was removed from his post in February 2017 after news broke that he had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak and that former Obama administration officials warned the White House that he could be vulnerable to the blackmail.
Flynn, of Middletown, Rhode Island, was among the president’s first aides to admit guilt in Mueller’s investigation and has been cooperating extensively for months. He provided such extensive cooperation that prosecutors did not recommend jail time and suggested they would agree to probation.
But on the morning he was due to be sentenced, after a harsh reprimand for his behavior from Sullivan, Flynn demanded that the hearing be halted so he could continue to cooperate and earn credit for a more lenient sentence.
After that, however, he hired new lawyers – including Powell, a conservative commentator and open critic of Mueller’s investigation – who took a much more confrontational stance towards the government.
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