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US President Donald Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“It is a great honor for me to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has received 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 US Army general, 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 leading up to Trump’s January 2017 inauguration.
Since then, he has tried to withdraw the guilty plea, arguing that prosecutors violated his rights and tricked him into agreeing to a settlement.
His sentence has been postponed several times.
It was the highest-profile pardon granted by Trump since he took office.
It is a great honor for me to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has received a full pardon. congratulations to @GenFlynn and your wonderful family, I know you will now have a really fantastic Thanksgiving.
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 25, 2020
Among others, 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 first national security adviser, but the president fired him in early 2017 after just 24 days when a controversy broke out over the former general’s contacts with then-Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
Flynn was one of several former aides to the president who pleaded guilty or was convicted at trial in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election to boost Trump’s candidacy.
Russia has denied meddling.
In March, Trump said he was seriously considering a full pardon for Flynn.
He said the FBI and the Justice Department had “destroyed” Flynn’s life and that of his family, and cited an unspecified and unsubstantiated report that they had lost records related to the former general.
Flynn was supposed to help cooperate with the government as part of his plea deal.
However, he later changed his lawyer and tactics, arguing that the prosecutors in the case had tricked him into lying about his December 2016 conversations with Kislyak.
The Justice Department has repeatedly denied the prosecution’s allegations of misconduct, with U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan dismissing all of Flynn’s allegations 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 docket that “the defendant has not learned his lesson. He has behaved as if the law did not apply to him, and as if there are no consequences for their actions. “
Flynn also served as the head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, but was ousted in 2014 in part due to his management style and views on how to fight Islamist militancy.
She joined the Trump election campaign in 2016 and at that year’s Republican National Convention led supporters in chants of “Lock her up,” in reference to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Other former Trump aides were convicted of federal crimes following the Russia investigation.
Trump’s longtime friend and adviser, Roger Stone, was sentenced on February 20 to three years and four months in prison for obstruction of justice, witness tampering and lying to lawmakers investigating Russian election interference.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, was sentenced last year to 3.5 years in prison after being convicted of illegal lobbying and witness tampering, which, combined with a sentence in a related case, amounted to more than seven years behind bars.
Trump, defeated in the November 3 presidential election, is due to leave the White House on January 20 when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.
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