Mueller rejects Flynn suggestion that he was duped into lying
WASHINGTON — The special counsel’s office on Friday fired back at the suggestion by former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s defense attorneys that he might have been duped into lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador — writing in a new court filing that Flynn “chose to make false statements” not just to agents, but to the media, the vice president and others.
Special counsel Robert Mueller wrote Friday that he continued to support little or no prison time for Flynn. But he and his prosecutors vigorously pushed backed against the idea that Flynn was caught unaware by FBI agents.
“The Court should reject the defendant’s attempt to minimize the seriousness of those false statements to the FBI,” prosecutors wrote in a memo filed ahead of Flynn’s scheduled sentencing next week. “Nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI.”
Flynn pleaded guilty last December to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation.
Since then, though, many of his supporters have questioned the legitimacy of the case against him. In arguing for a lenient sentence this week, Flynn’s defense attorneys made a point of noting, among other circumstances, that agents did not warn him beforehand it was a crime to lie to the FBI.
“As General Flynn has frankly acknowledged in his own words, he recognizes that his actions were wrong and he accepts full responsibility for them,” Flynn’s defense attorneys wrote. “There are, at the same time, some additional facts regarding the circumstances of the FBI interview of General Flynn on January 24, 2017, that are relevant to the Court’s consideration of a just punishment.”
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan requested more information on the January interview. The special counsel’s office filing Friday was a response to Sullivan’s request.
The filing said Flynn’s FBI interview was arranged by then-deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, who told Flynn that the agents wanted to interview him about the conversation with the ambassador. Prosecutors attached a redacted memo from McCabe, as well as a report of an interview with former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was among the agents to interview Flynn.