The Justice Department is dropping it’s case against Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. The Associated Press reports:
The move is a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes even though prosecutors for the last three years had maintained that Flynn had lied to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in a January 2017 interview. Flynn himself admitted as much, and became a key cooperator for Mueller as he investigated ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
The abrupt move came moments after the top prosecutor in the case against withdrew abruptly and without explanation. Brandon Van Grack, who served as one of special counsel Robert Mueller’s top lawyers and remained on the Flynn case even after Mueller’s office closed down, signaled his exit from the case in a terse, one-sentence filing with U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan Thursday afternoon.
This does seem to be unprecedented action by an attorney general.