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WASHINGTON – Michael T. Flynn's lawyers, the first national security adviser to President Trump, on Tuesday urged a federal judge to give their client a jail sentence for pleading guilty to lying to investigators, citing his important cooperation with the investigation of the special council.
million. Flynn's lawyers have stated that his long-term military service and his willingness to assist the special advocate, Robert S. Mueller III, deserved a probation sentence. The lawyers also included letters from supporters attesting to Mr Flynn's character.
"His cooperation was neither reluctant nor delayed," Flynn's lawyers wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
Flynn risked up to six months in prison when he was sentenced on December 18, but a punishment of this duration seems unlikely. Federal prosecutors also said last week to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the US District Court for the District of Columbia that Mr. Flynn, retired lieutenant-general of the army, deserved only little or no prison. They cited important information he had provided in several ongoing federal investigations, including 19 interviews with Mr. Mueller's team and other investigators.
million. Flynn "also deserves credit for accepting his responsibility in good time and for having greatly helped the government," wrote the prosecutors . His decision to plead guilty and cooperate, they wrote, "would likely have affected the decision of the interlocuted trial witnesses."
million. Flynn's cooperation has allowed the special advocate, who is investigating whether Trump's associates have plotted with the 2016 Russian election intervention, source of information on the reaction of M Trump and his advisers in the months following his surprise election victory and inside the oval office first chaotic weeks.
million. Flynn pleaded guilty at the end of last year for lying to the F.B.I. Sergey I. Kislyak spoke about the conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the transition at the end of 2016.
They spoke about the sanctions imposed by the United States. Obama administration to Russia for its interference in the elections. and Mr Flynn asked Russia to temper its response. The exchange flouted the warning of a top Obama administration official to stop interfering in foreign affairs before Trump took office.
million. Flynn and Kislyak also discussed separately the upcoming United Nations Security Council vote on the desirability of condemning Israeli settlement construction. Prosecutors said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked Trump's transitional team to put pressure on other countries to help Israel.
Officers questioned Mr. Flynn a week after taking office, and denied asking Mr. Kislyak that Russia refrained from harshly responding to the sanctions and said that he did not remember not Mr Kisklyak saying that Moscow had backed down on Mr Flynn's request.
Given that Mr. Flynn was untruthful to investigators, senior law enforcement officials warned the White House that he risked being blackmailed by Russia. . Mr. Trump and his assistants reviewed the situation and concluded that Mr. Flynn had no legal exposure. But he was fired 24 days after the conversations were released, and his associates claimed to have misled Vice President Mike Pence about the calls. 19659002] Mr. Flynn had a busy career in the military, where he was appointed head of the Defense Intelligence Agency before being sacked by President Barack Obama in 2014 at the following failures of management. Flynn then set up his own consulting company. Among his clients was the Turkish government, which paid him more than half a million dollars to investigate Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish religious resident in Pennsylvania.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held Mr. Gulen and his supporters responsible. for a failed coup d'état attempt in 2016 and repeatedly asked that the United States extradite Mr. Gulen, who had fled Turkey in 1999.
Flynn acknowledged that it n & # 39; 39; had not been duly registered as an agent of Turkey, and federal prosecutors in the state of Virginia in 1945 opened an investigation into Turkish secret lobbying who had trapped him . Trump said Flynn was due to leave the White House after deceiving Mr. Pence, but the president defended his former national security adviser, saying the investigators had treated him unfairly.
Flynn was also included in the Special Council's inquiry into whether the President obstructed justice. James B. Comey, former F.B.I. director, told lawmakers that the president had asked him to close the F.B.I. investigation of Mr. Flynn.
Asked last week about Mr. Flynn's case, Mr. Comey was pleased that Mr. Flynn was "held responsible for his crimes and was assisting the United States. It seemed to me to be a fair result. "
Mr. Comey also sought to clarify earlier testimony about Mr. Flynn's interview with F.B.I, which some conservatives cited as potential evidence that Mr. Flynn did not lie to the investigators. Mr. Comey rejected this theory.
"The investigators concluded that he was obviously lying," said Mr. Comey, "but they have not seen any of the usual deceptive clues: a reluctance to answer, a seat shift, sweating, everything you could associate with someone who is aware and manifest what he is saying – these are lies. "
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