Cheered on by Trump, Department of Justice drops Flynn case
Cheered on by President Donald Trump, the US Justice Department yesterday dropped the criminal case against his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, abandoning a prosecution that became a rallying cry for the president and his supporters in attacking the FBI’s TrumpRussia investigation.
The action was a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes even though prosecutors for the past three years have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Flynn himself admitted as much, pleading guilty before later asking to withdraw the plea, and he became a key co-operator for Mueller as the special counsel investigated ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 political campaign.
Yesterday’s action was swiftly embraced by Trump and it is likely to energise supporters of the president who have taken up the retired Army lieutenant general as a cause.
But it will also add to Democratic complaints that Attorney General William Barr is being influenced by the president.
Shortly before the filing was submitted, Brandon Van Grack, a Mueller team member and veteran prosecutor on the case, withdrew from the prosecution, a possible sign of disagreement with the decision.
After the Flynn announcement, Trump declared that his former aide had been “an innocent man” all along. He accused Obama administration officials of targeting Flynn and said, “I hope that a big price is going to be paid”. At one point he went further, saying of the effort investigating Flynn: “It’s treason. It’s treason.”
In court documents filed yesterday, the Justice Department said that after reviewing newly disclosed information and other materials, it agreed with Flynn’s lawyers that his interview with the FBI should never have taken place because his contacts with the Russian ambassador were “entirely appropriate”. The Flynn interview, the department said, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis”.
The US attorney reviewing the Flynn case, Jeff Jensen, formally recommended dropping it to Barr last week, the course of action vehemently and publicly recommended by Trump, who appointed Barr to head the Justice Department.
Barr has increasingly challenged the federal Trump-Russia investigation, saying in an interview last month that it was started “without any basis”. In February, he overruled a decision by prosecutors in the case of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump friend and adviser, in favour of a more lenient recommended sentence.
Jensen said in a statement that he “briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed”.
The department’s action comes amid an internal review into the handling of the case and an aggressive effort by Flynn’s lawyers to challenge the basis for the prosecution.
The lawyers cited newly disclosed FBI emails and notes last week to allege that Flynn was improperly trapped into lying when agents interviewed him days after Trump’s inauguration.
None of the documents challenged the central allegation that Flynn misled the FBI.
Democratic members of Congress lambasted yesterday’s action, as did former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who said in a statement the FBI was obliged to interview Flynn “to better understand why he was talking to Russian officials”.
Flynn’s lies, McCabe said, “added to our concerns about his relationship with the Russian government”.