Washington:
US President Donald Trump plans to pardon his former national safety advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI more than his Russian contacts, US media reported Tuesday.
Axios and the New York Times each cited unnamed sources as saying that Trump plans to incorporate Flynn in a series of pardons he will challenge in the final days of his presidency.
Flynn’s secret talks with the Russian ambassador to Washington in December 2016, prior to Trump was inaugurated, have been a cornerstone of the sprawling investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Moscow’s meddling in the US election earlier that year.
Trump fired Flynn just 22 days into his administration.
But the president has usually claimed the investigation was a political “witch hunt” and that Flynn, a former army common and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was a “good man.”
In a extremely uncommon move, the Justice Department withdrew its case against Flynn in May this year, saying the alleged lies to the FBI have been not considerable and handing Trump a significant political victory.
But a federal judge has demanded a additional judicial assessment of the matter.
A pardon from Trump would take the matter out of the courts.
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