Washington:
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned his former national safety adviser Michael Flynn who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in the course of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon. Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
A retired Army common, Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about interactions he had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States in the weeks top up to Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.
He has because sought to withdraw the plea, arguing that prosecutors violated his rights and duped him into a plea agreement. His sentencing has been deferred many instances.
It was the highest-profile pardon granted by Trump because he took workplace. Among other individuals, the Republican president has pardoned Army personnel accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff and hardliner against illegal immigration.
Flynn served as Trump’s very first national safety adviser but the president fired him in early 2017 immediately after only 24 days as a controversy broke more than the former general’s contacts with then Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
Flynn was a single of many former Trump aides to plead guilty or be convicted at trial in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 US election to enhance Trump’s candidacy. Russia denied meddling.
Trump in March mentioned he was strongly taking into consideration a complete pardon for Flynn. He mentioned the FBI and Justice Department had “destroyed” Flynn’s life and that of his family members, and cited an unspecified, unsubstantiated report that they had lost records connected to Flynn.
Flynn was supposed to enable cooperate with the government as aspect of his plea deal. But he later switched lawyers and techniques, arguing that prosecutors in the case had tricked him into lying about his December 2016 conversations with Kislyak.
The Justice Department has repeatedly denied allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, and US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan rejected all of Flynn’s claims in December 2019.
Federal prosecutors had asked the judge in January to sentence Flynn to up to six months in prison, arguing in a court filing that “the defendant has not learned his lesson. He has behaved as though the law does not apply to him, and as if there are no consequences for his actions.”
Flynn also served as head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency but was forced out in 2014 in aspect due to his management style and opinions on how to fight Islamist militancy.
He joined the Trump 2016 election campaign and at the Republican National Convention that year he led supporters in chants of “Lock her up,” in reference to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Other former Trump aides have been convicted of federal crimes following the Russia inquiry. Trump’s longtime buddy and adviser Roger Stone was sentenced on Feb. 20 to 3 years and 4 months in prison for obstruction of justice, witness tampering and lying to lawmakers investigating the Russian election interference.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was sentenced final year to three-1/two years in prison immediately after becoming convicted of unlawful lobbying and witness tampering, which combined with a sentence in a connected case equaled a term of a lot more than seven years behind bars.
Trump, defeated in a presidential election on Nov. three, is due to leave the White House on Jan. 20 when President-elect Joe Biden requires workplace.
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