Flynn pleads guilty to lying to FBI
Trump’s former national security adviser is co-operating in probe into Russian links
WASHINGTON — Michael Flynn, the retired general who campaigned at U.S. President Donald Trump’s side and then served as his first national security adviser, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI about reaching out to the Russians on Trump’s behalf. He also said members of the president’s inner circle were intimately involved with — and at times directing — his contacts.
Flynn’s plea to a single felony count of false statements made him the first official of the Trump White House to admit guilt so far in a wide-ranging criminal investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.
It also establishes Flynn as a key cooperator and likely witness in the federal investigation into whether Russia and associates of the president collaborated to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Trump’s favour.
Friday’s developments don’t resolve that paramount question, but they do show that Flynn lied to the FBI about multiple conversations last December with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Court papers make clear that Flynn knows the identities of members of Trump’s transition team who were fully aware of his outreach to Russian officials in the weeks before the inauguration. Mueller’s prosecutors indicated the officials were senior and within Trump’s inner circle.
That revelation moves the Russia investigation, which has shadowed Trump throughout the year, deeper into the White House and raises questions about the accuracy of repeated assertions by the administration that Flynn had misled Vice-President Mike Pence and other officials about the content of his calls with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner had led a transition team effort to defeat a United Nations vote referenced in the court papers, according to former U.S. officials and foreign diplomats.
Though prosecutors also had investigated Flynn lobbying work on behalf of the Turkish government, the fact that he pleaded guilty to just one count, and faces a guideline range of zero to six months in prison, suggest that prosecutors see him as a valuable tool in their investigation and are granting a degree of leniency in exchange for co-operation.
White House lawyer Ty Cobb sought to distance the plea from Trump himself, saying: “Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn.”
Flynn, a longtime soldier, stood quietly during his plea hearing except to answer brief questions from the judge. He accepted responsibility for his actions in a statement, though he said he had also been subjected to false accusations. He said: “My guilty plea and agreement to co-operate with the Special Counsel’s Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country.”
The Russia investigation has persistently followed Trump the first year of his presidency, angering the president and distracting from his agenda. Flynn’s plea came as Republican senators laboured to pass a far-reaching tax bill.
On Friday, the president ignored reporters’ questions as he welcomed the Libyan prime minister to the White House, and aides cancelled media access to a meeting between the two. He did appear briefly at an afternoon White House holiday reception for the media, where he offered season’s greetings and departed without addressing the Mueller investigation.
Early on in his administration, Trump had taken a particular interest in the status of the Flynn investigation. Former FBI director James Comey, whose firing in May precipitated the appointment of Mueller as special counsel, has said Trump asked him in a private Oval Office meeting to consider ending the investigation into Flynn.
Comey has said he found the encounter so shocking that he prepared an internal memo about it. The White House has denied that that conversation took place as Comey has said.
Comey tweeted a biblical passage after Flynn’s guilty plea Friday morning.
A tweet on Comey’s Twitter account, quoting the Old Testament book of Amos, said: “But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
A former Defence Intelligence Agency chief, Flynn was a vocal Trump surrogate during the campaign and was known for leading crowds in “Lock her up” chants regarding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Flynn was interviewed by the FBI days after Trump’s inauguration.
He was forced to resign after news reports indicating that the Trump White House had been warned by Obama administration officials that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak, and was therefore compromised and potentially vulnerable to blackmail.
White House officials including Pence, who had declared publicly that Flynn never discussed sanctions, said they had been misled.
The court case Friday concerns a series of conversations that Flynn had with Kislyak during the transition period between the November election and the Jan. 20 inauguration.
Prosecutors say Flynn on Dec. 29 spoke with an unnamed senior transition team official about what, if anything, to say about sanctions that had been imposed on Russia one day earlier by the Obama administration in retaliation for election interference.
Flynn then requested the Russian ambassador “not escalate the situation” and respond “in a reciprocal manner,” a conversation that prosecutors say he then reported to transition team members.
A member of Trump’s transition team said Friday that Kushner is the “very senior transition official” referenced in court papers filed in the Michael Flynn case.
The transition team official who confirmed the person as Kushner spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, since Kushner’s name was not publicly revealed.
If the Trump transition made secret back-door assurances to Russian diplomats, that could potentially run afoul of the Logan Act, a 1799 law that bars private American citizens from attempting to intervene in “disputes or controversies” between the United States and foreign powers without government approval.
Another conversation with Kislyak occurred one week earlier after a “very senior member” of the presidential transition team directed Flynn to contact foreign government officials, including from Russia, about a United Nations Security Council resolution regarding Israeli settlements.
In a striking rupture with past practice, the Obama administration refrained from vetoing the condemnation of the settlement expansion, opting instead to abstain.
The rest of the 15-nation council, including Russia, voted unanimously against Israel. At the time, Israel was lobbying furiously against the resolution and the Trump team spoke up on behalf of the Jewish state.
Former U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said Kushner led the effort to defeat that UN vote.
During his conversation with Kislyak, prosecutors say, Flynn requested that Russia vote against or delay the resolution, though he admitted in his plea deal that he later lied to the FBI by saying he had not made that request.
Mueller’s team announced charges in October against three other Trump campaign officials, former chairman Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates, and a former campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his own foreign contacts.
Meanwhile, the top Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees warned Trump Friday against trying to try to curtail congressional investigations or taking steps to end Mueller’s probe prematurely.
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and Congressman Adam Schiff of California warned in statements that it would be unacceptable for Trump to try to influence any investigations, including the probes their committees are conducting.