Trump reportedly plans to pardon former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI
- President Donald Trump plans to pardon former national security advisor Michael Flynn, Axios reported.
- The reported plans are said to be part of a series of pardons Trump plans to issue before leaving office in January.
- Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the US.
- In May, the Justice Department filed a motion to drop its case against Flynn, a move law enforcement veterans said was another instance of Attorney General William Barr exerting his influence to shield Trump's allies.
President Donald Trump plans to pardon former national security advisor Michael Flynn, Axios reported, citing sources with direct knowledge of discussions between Trump and close contacts.
The Flynn pardon is said to be one of several pardons Trump plans to issue before leaving office. The former national security advisor pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the US.
Flynn initially cooperated with prosecutors and twice admitted his guilt before a judge, but he later shifted course and hired Sidney Powell, a controversial defense attorney who took a more combative stance and urged the court to dismiss the Justice Department's case against Flynn while accusing the department of prosecutorial misconduct.
The former national security advisor moved to withdraw his guilty plea in January, and the Justice Department, led by Attorney General William Barr, filed a motion to dismiss its own case against Flynn in May. The abrupt reversal drew immediate praise from Trump and Flynn allies and added grist to Democratic complaints that the president and Barr continued to interfere with DOJ prosecutions.
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who is overseeing the Flynn case, halted the DOJ's efforts to drop the case and said that because of its political nature, he wanted third parties to weigh in as he considered the motion. One of those outside experts, the former federal judge and veteran prosecutor John Gleeson, later filed a brief in the case saying the DOJ engaged in "highly irregular conduct to benefit a political ally of the President."
In June, a three-judge appeals court panel, on which two of the judges are Republican appointees, ordered Sullivan to toss out the Flynn case. But the full appeals court panel later reexamined the Flynn case and in August denied Flynn's motion to dismiss the DOJ's case against him.
Powell, Flynn's lawyer, told a judge in September that she asked the president not to issue a pardon for her client. But it's not clear whether she and Trump discussed the matter after that.
The president and his allies have repeatedly accused the FBI and DOJ of entrapment in the Flynn case, and more broadly, of engineering the Russia investigation to undermine Trump's presidency and illegally requesting that Flynn's name be "unmasked" in intelligence reports.
But that conspiracy theory, dubbed "Obamagate," got blown to pieces in May, when the Washington Post reported that Flynn's name was never masked in the first place. That month, Barr tapped US attorney John Bash to review "unmasking" allegations related to the Flynn case amid pressure from the president and Flynn's allies. But in October, in another blow to Trump, the investigation ended without any criminal charges or a public report.
In July, Trump commuted the sentence of former Republican strategist Roger Stone. Last year, Stone was convicted of five counts of making false statements to the FBI and congressional investigators, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction of justice.
The White House declined to comment.