U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, the U.S. special counsel’s office charged in a court filing made public today.
The Office of the Special Counsel said a plea hearing for Flynn was set for 10:30 a.m ET this morning. He was to appear before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras at a D.C. federal courthouse and was expected to plead guilty.
Court documents released today show Flynn has been charged with a single count of “willfully and knowingly” making false statements to the FBI on Jan. 24.
Prosecutors with the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller say Flynn falsely stated to the FBI that he had not discussed sanctions with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States.
Vocal supporter
Flynn is the fourth person charged in connection with Mueller’s investigation after ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort and two colleagues.
Court documents show Flynn, an early and vocal supporter on the Trump campaign trail whose business dealings and foreign interactions made him a central focus of Mueller’s investigation, will admit to lying about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the transition period before Trump’s inauguration.
The expected guilty plea makes the retired Army lieutenant general the first person to have actually worked in the Trump White House to face formal charges in the investigation, which is examining possible co-ordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
Trump interested
Flynn has been under investigation for a wide range of allegations, including lobbying work on behalf of Turkey, but the fact that he was charged only with a single count of false statements suggests he is co-operating with Mueller’s investigation in exchange for leniency.
Early on, Trump had taken a particular interest in the status of the Flynn investigation. former FBI director James Comey has said Trump had asked him in a private Oval Office meeting to consider ending the investigation. The White House has denied that assertion.
Flynn, who was interviewed by the FBI just days after Trump’s inauguration, was forced to resign in February after White House officials said he had misled them about whether he had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
Administration officials said Flynn hadn’t discussed sanctions that had been imposed on Russia in part over election meddling. In charging Flynn, prosecutors made clear they believe that claim to be false.
3 others charged
Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Mueller’s team announced charges last month against three other Trump campaign officials, former chairman Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates, and a former foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.
Signs of Flynn co-operating with Mueller’s team surfaced in the past week, as his lawyers said they could no longer discuss information about the case with Trump’s legal team. Scheduled grand jury testimony regarding Flynn was also postponed by prosecutors.
The two-page charging document refers to two separate conversations with Kislyak and two separate false statements prosecutors say he made regarding that communication.
Flynn is accused of lying to the FBI about conversations he had with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. The former ambassador denied the accusations of meddling in the U.S. presidential election. (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)
Besides a Dec. 29 conversation about sanctions, prosecutors also cite an earlier December meeting, in which Flynn asked Kislyak to delay or defeat a UN Security Council resolution. That appears to refer to the body’s vote a day later to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In a striking rupture with past practice, the Obama administration refrained from vetoing the condemnation, opting instead to abstain. The rest of the 15-nation council, including Russia, voted unanimously against Israel.
At the time, Israel was lobbying furiously against the resolution and President-elect Trump’s team spoke up on behalf of the Jewish state. Trump personally called Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to press the case against the condemnation, and Egypt surprisingly postponed the scheduled showdown on Dec. 22 — the same day Flynn met Kislyak.
‘Things will be different’
After more procedural wrangling, the vote occurred a day later. Trump almost immediately condemned the UN result via Twitter.
“As to the UN, things will be different after Jan. 20th,” Trump said, referencing his upcoming inauguration.
Meanwhile this morning, as news of Flynn’s plea hearing broke, Trump issued a series of tweets after a jury found a Mexican man not guilty in the killing of a woman on a San Francisco pier, calling the verdict “disgraceful” and suggesting Democrats will pay a price for being “weak on Crime.”
He often cited the case of the 2015 shooting of Kate Steinle during his presidential campaign, and used it as a reason to push for a wall on the Mexican border. Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented Mexican immigrant, was acquitted of murder and manslaughter charges Thursday.