US judge asks if Michael Flynn should be held in contempt for perjury
Michael Flynn could be charged with perjury as the fallout from Donald Trump’s attempt to exonerate his former national security adviser continues.
The Department of Justice announced last week it was dropping its case against Flynn amid pressure from Donald Trump and his political allies. Flynn had testified under oath that he had lied to the FBI, while he also lied to the vice-president, Mike Pence, about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the transition from the Obama to the Trump administrations, about a possible easing of sanctions for interfering in the 2016 election.
The judge in Flynn’s case, however, on Wednesday asked a former federal judge to examine whether Flynn should face a criminal contempt charge for perjury, given Flynn later changed course and said he had not lied to the federal agency.
US district judge Emmet Sullivan, in Washington, said he had asked John Gleeson, a former federal judge in New York, to recommend whether Flynn should face a new criminal contempt charge for perjury. Gleeson has also been asked to make the case for why the DoJ’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case should be rejected.
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who served as an adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign, pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia’s US ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in the weeks before Trump took office.
However, later in the case Flynn switched lawyers and tactics, accusing the FBI of tricking him. In January this year Flynn sought to have his guilty plea withdrawn.
The attorney general, William Barr, revealed in February he had tapped Jeffrey Jensen, a federal prosecutor in Missouri, to work alongside career prosecutors to help review the case.
Jensen ultimately recommended that Barr abandon the case, which the DoJ did in a filing on 7 May, saying that
the FBI’s Flynn interview on 24 January 2017 that underpinned the charges was conducted without a “legitimate investigative basis” and that Flynn’s statements were not “material even if untrue”.
Since then, Barr has been criticised by Democrats and former career prosecutors, who said his actions amounted to improper political meddling and harmed the integrity of the DoJ.
Sullivan, known for his independence and willingness to go against any potential government overreach, had lambasted Flynn during his trial.
“Arguably,” Sullivan said, describing how Flynn had secretly been working for the Turkish government before he joined the White House, “that undermines everything this flag over here stands for.”
Sullivan said: “I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain, for this criminal offense.”
James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, told CNN on Thursday morning: “I know Michael Flynn, and it wasn’t just Flynn. It was others. So what exactly was going on with the Russians … with this engagement with our primary adversary? That’s why the warning light on everyone’s dashboard was on.”
The Republican senator Lindsey Graham has said Clapper should testify to Congress, and Clapper agreed that he would if required – in person after a coronavirus vaccine is available, or remotely, as Anthony Fauci and other public health experts did before the Senate earlier this week.
Donald Trump then went on Twitter to encourage Graham but also once again to needle Barack Obama.
Clapper added that the way Flynn was investigated was routine, using “a very important capability for protecting the national security of our country”.
He said he thought that Trump and some Republican senators have been raising the topic in order to “create the impression that there was something untoward, or improper, or illegitimate going on. There was not.”
Clapper pointed out that the request to identify Flynn during the initial investigation was approved through proper NSA procedures and that members of the Obama administration who were involved were all “authorized recipients” of the reports about Flynn.