Tag: Michael Flynn

Judge Unexpectedly Delays Michael Flynn Sentencing

Michael Flynn, former national security adviser, leaves the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse after a federal judge delayed his sentencing Tuesday. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. Credit: Tom Williams, CQ Roll Call)

Judge signals he’s prepared to send former national security adviser to jail despite agreement with prosecutors

Former Trump national security and campaign adviser Michael Flynn will not be sentenced for lying to the FBI until March.

A federal judge agreed to delay the sentencing of the former Trump official after signaling to Flynn and his attorneys that he was prepared to send Flynn to prison unless he learned more about his cooperation with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

Flynn admitted to Judge Emmet Sullivan in a Washington courtroom on Tuesday that he knew it was a crime when he lied to the FBI in January 2017.

View the complete December 18 article by Griffin Connolly on The Roll Call website here.

Michael Flynn’s business associates charged with illegally lobbying for Turkey

Bijan Kian leaves the FBI Field Office in Washington on Monday. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin, AP

Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment Monday charging two business associates of Michael T. Flynn with acting as agents of the Turkish government, describing in remarkable detail how the three attempted to persuade the United States to expel a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Throughout the fall of 2016, while Flynn served publicly as a key surrogate and foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, prosecutors say he and business partner Bijan Kian took hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Turkish government to push for the extradition from the United States of dissident cleric Fethullah Gulen. Their efforts, prosecutors said, were directed by Kamil Ekim Alptekin, a Turkish businessman with close ties to the country’s leadership.

U.S. law enforcement has repeatedly rejected Turkey’s efforts to force Gulen back to his home country — despite intense pressure from Erdogan, who says that the cleric is responsible for a failed 2016 coup attempt, in which Gulen denies any involvement. By prosecutors’ account, the foreign government found a powerful and enthusiastic ally in Flynn — who was willing on the eve of the presidential election to pen an op-ed pushing for Gulen’s expulsion.

View the complete December 18 article by Rachel Weiner, Matt Zapotosky and Carol D. Leonnig on The Washington Post website here.

Flynn associates claim he was in contact with Russian ambassador about a ‘grand bargain’ during 2016 campaign

“Trump’s chief national security aide was secretly interacting with the representative of a foreign power as that government was mounting information and cyber warfare against the United States.”

When Michael Flynn, former national security advisor in the Trump Administration, agreed to cooperate in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, he admitted to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the late 2016 lame duck session. But according to a new David Corn/Dan Friedman article for Mother Jones, Flynn was in touch with Kislyak not only after the 2016 presidential election, but during the election as well.

For the article, published December 13, Mother Jones’ reporters interviewed two Flynn associates who asked for anonymity—and both of them discussed their conversations with Flynn. One of them, according to Corn and Friedman, alleges that Flynn and Kislyak discussed “a grand bargain in which Moscow would cooperate with the Trump Administration to resolve the Syrian conflict and Washington would end or ease up on the sanctions imposed on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and military intervention in Ukraine.”

According to Corn and Friedman, the other Flynn associate alleges that Flynn and Kislyak discussed “Syria, Iran and other foreign policy matters that Russia and the United States could tackle together were Trump to be elected.”

View the complete December 13 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet.org website here.

Mueller rebukes Flynn, who ‘chose’ to make false statements to FBI

Special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday rebuked former national security adviser Michael Flynn for suggesting that FBI agents had duped him into lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.

“Nothing about the way the interview was arranged or conducted caused the defendant to make false statements to the FBI on January 24,” Mueller wrote in a filing Friday afternoon, asking a federal judge to reject Flynn’s attempt to “minimize the seriousness of those false statements to the FBI.”

“The defendant chose to make false statements about his communications with the Russian ambassador weeks before the FBI interview, when he lied about that topic to the media, the incoming Vice President, and other members of the Presidential Transition Team,” Mueller wrote.

View the complete December 14 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Mueller recommends no jail time for Flynn, citing his ‘substantial assistance’

Special counsel Robert Mueller has asked a federal court for no prison time for President Trump‘s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, citing his “substantial assistance” in the Russia investigation and other ongoing probes.

In a court filing released late Tuesday, Mueller said it would be “appropriate” for the judge to impose a sentence for Flynn that does not include prison time. Federal sentencing guidelines called for Flynn to be sentenced to between zero and six months in prison and face up to a $9,500 fine.

“The offense level and guideline range, however, do not account for a downward departure pursuant to Section 5K1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines reflecting the defendants substantial assistance to the government, which the government has moved for contemporaneously,” Mueller’s prosecutors wrote in a filing on Tuesday, referring to a motion that a prosecutor files in a case where a cooperating defendant rises to the level of “substantial assistance.”

View the complete December 4 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Mueller asks court to schedule Flynn sentencing

Special counsel Robert Mueller is asking a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to move forward with the sentencing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, nearly 10 months after he pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his Russia contacts.

The development Monday comes after repeated delays in Flynn’s sentencing.

“The matter is now ready to be scheduled for sentencing,” Mueller’s prosecutors wrote in a joint filing with Flynn’s defense attorneys on Monday. They requested that Judge Emmet D. Sullivan set a date for sentencing, suggesting Nov. 28 or seven business days after that.

View the complete September 17 article by Morgan Chalfant on the Hill website here.

Mike Flynn’s Delayed Sentence Suggests ‘He Still Has a Lot More to Give’ Robert Mueller: NBC Reporter

The following article by Cory Fenwick was posted on the AlterNet website June 29, 2018:

The president former national security adviser has become a cooperating witness in the Russia investigation.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Credit: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a cooperating witness in the ongoing Russia investigation, appears to have become a valuable source of information in special counsel Robert Mueller’s work, and according to a court filing Friday.

We know that because Mueller requested another two-month delay before Flynn’s sentencing. NBC reporter Ken Dilianian explained what that means on MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” with Nicolle Wallace.

“We have to be careful about reading too much into this,” he said, “but the fact that they are continuing to delay Mike Flynn’s sentence, Mike Flynn’s cooperating with Robert Mueller’s investigation, suggests that he still has a lot more to give them.”

View the full post on the AlterNet website.

Trump’s lawyer raised possibility of pardons for Manafort, Flynn last summer

The following article by Carol D. Leonnig, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman was posted on the Washington Post website March 28, 2018:

Professor Louis Seidman, an expert in constitutional law, explains how President Trump could use his executive privilege to pardon himself or others. (Video: Ashleigh Joplin/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

President Trump’s lawyer told attorneys representing Paul J. Manafort and Michael Flynn last year that the president might be willing to pardon his former aides if they faced criminal charges stemming from an investigation into Russia’s election interference, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

The president’s lead lawyer at the time, John Dowd, was described as floating the idea of a pardon for Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, and Flynn, the former national security adviser, at a vulnerable moment for the two men. Both Flynn and Manafort had contacts with Russians while advising Trump and were under investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team, but neither had been charged at that point. Continue reading “Trump’s lawyer raised possibility of pardons for Manafort, Flynn last summer”

What Michael Flynn Could Tell the Russia Investigators

The following article by David Kocieniewski and Lauren Etter was posted on the Bloomberg website March 19, 2018:

The former national security adviser mingled business with government. That could help Robert Mueller look for similar overlaps among Trump insiders.

Then-national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House in February. Credit:
Carolyn Kaster, AP

It started with helping a friend pitch the Pentagon on a smartphone chip and moved on to more ambitious plans to sell nuclear reactor security in the Middle East and then to high-priced lobbying for the Turkish government.

Michael Flynn, who joined Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as a top military adviser, never believed the candidate would win and often treated the election like a business opportunity, associates say. Now, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller bears down on Trump, Flynn is a key cooperating witness.

A three-month Bloomberg investigation has found that Flynn, who was fired for having lied to the FBI and the vice president about his contacts with Russians, had a slew of other problematic entanglements. Previously unreported documents, including Pentagon contracts, emails and internal company papers, point to overlapping business conflicts around the world. Continue reading “What Michael Flynn Could Tell the Russia Investigators”

Flynn kept FBI interview concealed from White House, Trump

The following article by Carol E. Lee was posted on the NBC News website January 24, 2018:

Then-national security adviser Michael Flynn at the White House in February. Credit:
Carolyn Kaster, AP

WASHINGTON — A year ago today, President Donald Trump’s newly sworn–in national security adviser, Michael Flynn, met privately in his West Wing office with FBI investigators interested in his communications with Russia’s ambassador, without a lawyer or the knowledge of the president and other top White House officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

Flynn’s FBI interview on Jan. 24, 2017, set in motion an extraordinary sequence of events unparalleled for the first year of a U.S. presidency. Flynn was fired as national security adviser after 24 days on the job, the acting attorney general was fired 10 days after the president took office, the FBI director was allegedly pressured by the president to let go of an investigation into Flynn, and then eventually fired himself. Continue reading “Flynn kept FBI interview concealed from White House, Trump”