Ex-Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Should Get Jail Time, Prosecutors Say
Trump Ex-Adviser Michael Flynn Should Get Jail Time, Prosecutors Say
(Bloomberg) -- Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his contacts with a Russian ambassador, should serve time in jail for his offense, prosecutors told a Washington federal judge, dropping their previous arguments for leniency.
Flynn should receive a term as long as six months, prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in a filing Tuesday. The former Army general is to be sentenced on Jan. 28 after a delay of more than a year.
In 2018, the government recommended that Flynn get probation based on his cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election. The U.S. changed its position after Flynn adopted a more confrontational approach.
Legal experts said Flynn’s growing truculence clearly seemed aimed at pleasing Trump and winning a possible presidential pardon. Flynn’s lawyers might even be calculating that a jail sentence inspires Trump to act more quickly on Flynn’s behalf, said former federal prosecutor Ryan Fayhee.
Another former federal prosecutor, Jeff Cramer, agreed that Flynn was eyeing a pardon. “That would be a farce with any other president,” Cramer said. “Here, it isn’t a bad plan.”
In Tuesday’s filing, prosecutors said actions and comments by Flynn and his lawyer since his last sentencing hearing in 2018 “negate the benefits of much of the defendant’s earlier cooperation.” They said they no longer believed he deserved credit for accepting responsibility for his actions.
“Indeed, the government has reason to believe, through representations by the defendant’s counsel, that the defendant has retreated from his acceptance of responsibility in this case regarding his lies to the FBI,” prosecutors said.
Flynn served just three weeks as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser before he was fired for lying about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. at the time. Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 and agreed to cooperate.
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According to prosecutors, that cooperation broke down over the last year or so. Before Flynn’s December 2018 sentencing, his original attorneys implied their client may have been tricked into pleading guilty by the agents who questioned him. Sullivan had Flynn reaffirm his guilty plea, then postponed the sentencing so Flynn could help prosecutors in their case against his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian.
In June, Flynn hired Dallas lawyer Sidney Powell, who is also a conservative commentator and vocal critic of the Mueller investigation. Within weeks a dispute erupted between the new defense team and prosecutors counting on Flynn’s cooperation in the illegal lobbying case against Rafiekian, who is also known as Bijan Kian.
In court papers filed then, Powell said the government was pressing her client to give untruthful testimony. Prosecutors ultimately elected to not call Flynn as a witness, a factor they cited Tuesday in explaining why they now were calling for prison time.
Rafiekian was convicted by the jury in July, but the trial judge overturned the verdict in September, saying the evidence was insufficient.
Powell went on to accuse prosecutors of withholding evidence that would clear Flynn, including classified information and the original interview notes that led to the charges against him, and asked the judge to throw out Flynn’s indictment. Sullivan declined.
“The prosecution wanted General Flynn to lie in the Rafiekian case,” Powell said in an emailed statement. “He refused to do that, and now they want to punish him. It’s an outrage.”
Flynn’s arguments for leniency are due on Jan. 22.
The case is U.S. v. Flynn, 17-cr-232, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Harris in federal court in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Anthony Lin
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