President Trump bestowed a “Full Pardon” on Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the investigation of Russian meddling in U.S. elections.
Trump’s intent to pardon several people before he leaves office was first reported by Axios, citing “sources with direct knowledge” of discussions between the president and top aides and advisers.
Some have suggested that before leaving office Trump may even pardon himself preemptively, as a shield against federal, though not state or local criminal charges.
“Flynn’s pardon [is] the culmination of a four-year political and legal saga that began with the FBI’s investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in the 2016 election,” Axios says.
The retired Army lieutenant general is viewed by many Trump supporters as a victim of political retaliation by the Obama administration.
But Flynn, 61, is no wrongly convicted victim of misguided justice.
He has pleaded guilty twice to lying to the bureau about his contacts with the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition four years ago.
Flynn “changed his legal team last year and began seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he never lied to investigators and was the target in January 2017 of what his lawyers in court papers called an ‘ambush-interview’ by FBI agents seeking to entrap him,” says the New York Times.
“He has since become a hero figure on the pro-Trump right, portrayed as a decorated patriot victimized by the politically motivated Russia “hoax” investigation” of Trump,” the newspaper says.
Flynn served just 24 days as White House national security adviser before Trump fired him in 2017. The president now defends him as an innocent victim of a supposed Obama administration campaign to “take down” Trump.
Flynn has claimed he doesn’t remember his conversations with the former Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
But recently declassified transcripts show that the Flynn-Kislyak contacts “were extensive,” the Times says.
“Trump’s pardon of Flynn would take the matter out of the hands of the courts and of a Biden-controlled Justice Department,” Axios says.
“In his final weeks in office, Trump is approaching the time when past presidents have granted pardons, and he has the potential to expunge his friends and supporters of all federal criminal convictions on his way out the door.”
Including himself.
