WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday abruptly asked a judge to drop criminal charges versus Donald Trump’s former nationwide security consultant Michael Flynn following mounting pressure from the Republican president and his political allies on the.
The move drew furious criticism from congressional Democrats and others who implicated the department and Chief law officer William Barr of bending to Trump’s desires and incorrectly securing his friends and associates in criminal cases.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who worked as a consultant to Trump throughout the 2016 project, had actually been seeking to withdraw his 2017 guilty plea in which he admitted to lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russia’s U.S. ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the weeks before Trump took office.
The Justice Department submitted a movement to dismiss the charges with U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, who has commanded the case. Sullivan now must rule on the movement.
Trump, who had openly assaulted the case versus Flynn, said he was “really pleased” for his former assistant, adding, “Yes, he was a great warrior, and he still is a fantastic warrior. Now in my book he’s an even greater warrior.” Trump in March stated he was considering a full pardon and implicated the FBI and Justice Department of having actually “damaged” Flynn’s life and that of his family.
Flynn was one of numerous former Trump assistants charged under previous Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that detailed Moscow’s disturbance in the 2016 U.S. election to boost Trump’s candidateship and contacts in between Trump’s project and Russia. Trump’s long-time good friend and advisor Roger Stone and his previous project chairman Paul Manafort both were founded guilty and sentenced to multi-year jail terms.
The Justice Department said in its court submitting it is no longer persuaded that the FBI’s Jan. 24, 2