Nation: Trump pardons former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn
Former national security adviser pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI
Washington — President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced he had pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, ending a three-year legal saga that saw Flynn seek to withdraw a guilty plea for lying to the FBI and a controversial reversal by the Justice Department on his case.
Flynn pleaded guilty to a felony in December 2017, admitting that he had misled investigators about details of his conversations with the Russian ambassador during Trump’s presidential transition.
His plea was one of the first major courtroom victories for special counsel Robert Mueller III, who had been appointed seven months earlier.
But this spring, Attorney General William Barr and the Justice Department declared that prosecutors should not have brought the case against him and sought to have it dismissed. That request has been pending before a federal judge, who has been reviewing the case.
Trump’s pardon of Flynn marks a full embrace of the retired general he had ousted from the White House after only 22 days on the job — and a final salvo against the Russia investigation that shadowed the first half of his term in office.
The president and his allies have touted Flynn’s cause in their efforts to discredit the special counsel inquiry into whether individuals associated with Trump’s campaign cooperated with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
As Wednesday, Trump tweeted, “It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”
Not long before Trump announced the pardon publicly, Flynn tweeted an image of the American flag and the words “Jeremiah 1:19,” a reference to a Bible verse in which God says, “They will fight against you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you.”
Democrats responded to the long-anticipated pardon with outrage. In a lengthy statement, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Flynn had chosen “loyalty to Trump over loyalty to his country” and that Trump’s decision to was intended to insulate himself from criminal investigation. He called that a “corruption of the Framer’s intent” in giving the president broad pardon powers.
“It’s no surprise that Trump would go out just as he came in — crooked to the end,” Schiff said.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., called the pardon “undeserved, unprincipled, and one more stain on President Trump’s rapidly diminishing legacy.”
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the pardon.