Source: The Washington Post / Getty
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and the Russia investigation (all times local):
1:05 p.m.
A federal judge has agreed to delay former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing so he can continue cooperating with the Russia probe.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Tuesday set a status conference for March.
Attorneys for Flynn asked the judge to postpone the sentencing. The stunning request came after Sullivan warned Flynn that if he were sentenced as scheduled Tuesday, he might not get all the credit for his cooperation with investigators that he is entitled to.
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts. Prosecutors had recommended no prison time, citing his cooperation. But the judge’s rebuke raised the prospect that Flynn could get a harsher sentence.
12:25 a.m.
Michael Flynn will likely walk out of a courtroom a free man due to his extensive cooperation with federal prosecutors, but the run-up to his sentencing hearing Tuesday has exposed raw tensions over an FBI interview in which he lied about his Russian contacts.
The former national security adviser’s lawyers have suggested that investigators discouraged him from having an attorney present during the January 2017 interview and never informed him it was a crime to lie. Prosecutors shot back, “He does not need to be warned it is a crime to lie to federal agents to know the importance of telling them the truth.”
On Monday evening, the dispute— and a judge’s intervention— led prosecutors to publicly file a redacted copy of the notes from Flynn’s FBI interview that largely bolster the case, showing he told agents things he later said were false.
Still, the mere insinuation of underhanded tactics has been startling given the seemingly productive relationship between the two sides, and it was especially striking since prosecutors with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office have praised Flynn’s cooperation and recommended against prison time. The defense arguments spurred speculation that Flynn may be trying to get sympathy from President Donald Trump or may be playing to a judge known for a zero-tolerance view of government misconduct.
“It’s an attempt, I think, to perhaps characterize Flynn as a victim or perhaps to make him look sympathetic in the eyes of a judge — and, at the same time, to portray the special counsel in a negative light,” said former federal prosecutor Jimmy Gurule, a University of Notre Dame law school professor.
Until the dueling memos were filed last week, Flynn had cooperated extensively and largely eschewed the aggressive tactics of others involved in the Mueller probe.
Prosecutors, for instance, have accused former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of lying to them even after he agreed to cooperate. Another potential target, Jerome Corsi, leaked draft court documents and accused Mueller’s team of bullying him. And George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser recently released from a two-week prison sentence, has lambasted the investigation and publicly claimed that he was set up.
But then came Flynn’s sentencing memo.
