Lawyer says she asked Trump not to extend pardon to Flynn

WASHINGTON — A lawyer for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn told a judge Tuesday that she recently updated President Donald Trump on the case and asked him not to issue a pardon for her client.

The attorney, Sidney Powell, was initially reluctant to discuss her conversations with the president or the White House, saying she believes that they are protected by executive privilege. But under persistent questioning from U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, she acknowledged having spoken to the president within the past few weeks to brief him and to request that he not pardon Flynn.

Attorney General William Barr, who appointed a U.S. attorney from Current Justice Department offiMissouri to investigate the handling cials rejected that characterization of the case, moved in May to disat Tuesday’s hearing, the first since miss the case despite Flynn’s own a federal appeals court ruled that guilty plea. Sullivan did not have to immedi

Flynn has emerged as someately dismiss the prosecution just thing of a cause célèbre for Trump because the government wants him to.supporters,whilecriticsofbarr’s action, including former FBI and At issue before the judge Tuesday Justice Department officials, decry was what role courts can play in what they see as the politicization scrutinizing prosecutors’ request of law enforcement in the move to to abandon a case they had once drop the case. brought.