Flynn pleads guilty to lying about Russia links
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump’s former top adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying over his contacts with Russia, in a dramatic escalation of the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
The fourth and most senior figure indicted so far in the investigation into Russian interference in last year’s election, Flynn appeared yesterday in federal court in Washington for a plea hearing less than two hours after the charges against him were made public.
“Yes, sir,” the retired three star general and former military intelligence chief said when asked if he wanted to plead guilty.
“I accept your guilty plea,” said Judge Rudolph Contreras, adding: “There will be no trial and there will be probably no appeal.”
Flynn was charged on Thursday with one count of lying about his private discussions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, regarding US sanctions being imposed on Moscow by the government of then president Barack Obama.
“On or about Jan 24, 2017, defendant Michael T. Flynn did willfully and knowingly make materially false, fictitious and fraudulent state
ments and representations” over a government matter, federal prosecutors said in the twopage charge sheet.
At the time, Flynn was a campaign adviser with no official US government role, but it was known that he would likely become Trump’s White House national security adviser – a post he was forced to resign in February, just weeks after the president took office, due to concerns over his contacts with Russia.
The charges allege that Flynn falsely denied to investigators that last December, just as the Obama administration was announcing new sanctions and the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election, Flynn privately asked Kislyak to refrain from escalating the situation by retaliating.
Flynn also allegedly lied to investigators about Kislyak’s subsequent answer that Russia would moderate its response, according to the charge document. Flynn, who once headed the Defence Intelligence Agency, is also accused of lying about secretly asking Kislyak in late December to defeat or delay a vote on a pending UN Security Council resolution, according to the charges.