- The Justice Department is dropping its prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, according to a court filing Thursday.
- The move comes more than two years after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his discussions with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks before President Donald Trump took office.
- The Justice Department said it is abandoning the prosecution of the retired Army general after “a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”
The Justice Department on Thursday dropped its prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with a Russian diplomat in the weeks before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The bombshell move, which was granted promptly by the federal judge in the case, comes more than two years after Flynn’s guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the then-ongoing investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
But it also comes as Flynn was trying to withdraw that plea on the claim that federal prosecutors had withheld potentially exculpatory material from him and his lawyers.
Previously undisclosed documents that were released in late April bolstered that argument, and led to the Justice Department’s decision to abandon the case.
Trump lauded the move to drop the case against retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, which was approved by Attorney General William Barr on the recommendation of a top federal prosecutor that Barr recently tasked to review the case.
The president had strongly criticized Flynn’s prosecution in the past.
“He was an innocent man. He is a great gentleman,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Now in my book he’s an even greater warrior.”
Trump, who said he had not known beforehand of the decision to drop the case, said, “He was targeted by the Obama administration and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president.”
“And I hope a lot of people are going to pay a big price, because they’re dishonest crooked people, they’re scum, and I say it a lot, theyre scum, they’re human scum. This should never have happened in this country,” Trump said.
“They got caught. Very dishonest people, but much more than — it’s treason. It’s treason.”
In court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the Justice Department said it wanted to end the prosecution of Flynn after “a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”
“The Government has concluded that the interview of Mr. Flynn was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn — a no longer justifiably predicated investigation that the FBI had, in the Bureau’s own words, prepared to close because it had yielded an ‘absence of any derogatory information,’ ” the filing said.
“The Government is not persuaded that the January 24, 2017 interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe Mr. Flynn’s statements were material even if untrue. Moreover, we not believe that the Government can prove either the relevant false statements or their materiality beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Timothy Shea, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said in the filing that although Flynn had pleaded guilty to making false statements, “in the Government’s assessment, however, he did so without full awareness of the circumstances of the newly discovered, disclosed, or declassified information as to the FBI’s investigation of him.”
Those new documents cited by Shea included a handwritten note by Bill Priestap, the then-FBI counterintelligence chief, dated Jan. 24, 2017, that was prepared before FBI agents questioned Flynn about his discussions with Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.
“What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Priestap had written.
On the same note, Priestap had written, “If we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious. Protect our institution by not playing games.”
Flynn’s lawyer, Sidney Powell, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the dismissal of the case..
The documents unsealed in Flynn’s case last month were shared with Powell and Flynn’s other lawyers after Attorney General William Barr appointed the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Jeffrey Jensen, to review the case.
Jensen, in a statement, said, “Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case. I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., in a tweet wrote that he hoped that Flynn “sues the s— out of those clowns at the FBI who put him through that nonsense for three years setting him up and flagrantly sitting on all of the exculpatory evidence for 3 years. I truly hope they don’t get away with this travesty of justice.”
Shortly before the news broke about the dismissal, a top prosecutor in Flynn’s case withdrew from that case, according to a filing in federal court.
Flynn had spent just a handful of weeks of Trump’s national security advisor. He resigned after admitting to lying to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his talks with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
Flynn’s criminal sentencing had been repeatedly postponed.
