Trump: Flynn decision surprises United States
President Donald Trump says he didn’t know the Justice Department was planning to drop its case against his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. But it didn’t really matter. The extraordinary action underscored the extent to which Trump and attor ney-general William Barr have been in sync in their views on the federal TrumpRussia investigation — with or without communicating about it.
Barr himself has openly challenged the decisions of predecessors and his own prosecutors. He has launched probes to investigate the investigators.
Trump has relentlessly railed against the special counsel’s inquiry into his 2016 campaign’s contacts with Russia – which the Flynn case grew out of – and was eager for news in his favour to shift voters’ focus away from his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic that has crippled the US economy.
Beyond that, the decision to dismiss the Flynn case had the effect not only of undoing a key prosecution from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s winning campaign, but also of sparing the president from having to make a politically charged pardon decision in the current election year.
Trump suggested that more surprises yesterday could be afoot, saying ‘‘a lot of things are going to be told over the next couple of weeks.’’ He said the ‘‘jury’s still out with regard’’ to FBI director Chris Wray.
The Flynn outcome was startling in multiple ways, not least because the Justice Department rarely undertakes internal reviews of its own prosecutions – let alone cases in which a defendant has pleaded guilty.
The January 24, 2017, interview of Flynn came at a pivotal juncture, as the FBI scrambled to untangle potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Agents knew from a transcript of Flynn’s call with ambassador Sergey Kislyak that Flynn had discussed US sanctions with Kislyak, but were distressed that White House officials were publicly insisting otherwise and scheduled an interview with him.
‘‘The idea that it wasn’t appropriate to go do some interview of Flynn, and that the basis of the investigation was somehow untoward, is obviously remarkable and unbelievable at the same time,’’ said former Justice Department prosecutor Ryan Fayhee.
Flynn, a retired army lieutenant general, would later be ousted from the White House, with officials saying he lied to them.
But the Justice Department now says there was no basis to question Flynn, especially since agents were prepared to close their investigation into him weeks earlier after finding nothing to suggest he had committed a crime.
The department also suggests the FBI erred by not advising Flynn that it was a crime to lie, even though the agency said less than two years ago it wasn’t required.
Some current and former officials say there are less extreme remedies for issues like the ones the department identified. The department, for instance, could have supported Flynn’s withdraw his guilty plea.
But a senior Justice Department official said the department believes concerns about the FBI’s conduct – one of the agents who interviewed Flynn was later fired for derogatory text messages about Trump during the investigation – would have made it difficult to win at trial had a judge agreed to withdraw the plea.
One Justice Department prosecutor not involved in the case expressed bewilderment about the decision, especially since it involved walking away from a guilty plea and conviction.
The prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the persistent attacks on the FBI have given defence lawyers ammunition to attack federal investigators as corrupt, and have exposed political divisions inside Justice Department offices that are meant to be apolitical.
As for Flynn, he responded to bid to the news by posting a video of his grandson holding an American flag and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Longtime friend Tom Heaney said Flynn felt vindicated and was relieved by the decision. ‘‘He feels like a huge weight has been lifted off him. For all of us, we were never doubting the fact that he was innocent.’’
And with unemployment at its worst rate since the Great Depression, and deaths from Covid-19 still rising in most of the country, Trump argued yesterday that Americans should not hold him responsible for the calamity on his watch.
Less than six months before election day, Trump’s new campaign message – don’t blame him – is a risky bet that voters will credit his efforts to fight the pandemic and revive the moribund economy, and not hold him accountable for the administration’s much-criticised response and the 75,000 US deaths so far, the most of any country.
In a lengthy interview on Fox & Friends, Trump appeared to dismiss the stunning spike in jobless claims – 20.5 million in April alone, putting the unemployment rate at 14.7 per cent, the highest since 1933 – as beyond his control.
‘‘It’s fully expected, there’s no surprise, everybody knows that,’’ Trump said. ‘‘Even the Democrats aren’t blaming me for that. But what I can do is, I’ll bring it back.’’