President Trump again signaled his displeasure with the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on Saturday.
“New documents just released reveal General Flynn was telling the truth, and the FBI knew it!” Trump said in a tweet referencing a new disclosure Friday which Flynn’s attorneys say shows their client was the target of prosecutorial misconduct.
In a new 14-page filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals Friday, Flynn lawyer Sidney Powell said prosecutors deliberately suppressed evidence that would have been favorable to his client, Bloomberg reported.
The docs reveal prosecutors’ internal debates over whether to bring charges against Flynn. In one, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Tashina Gauhar described agents assessments of Flynn after speaking to him, saying they believed he had been “forthright” about his conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and that there was no indication of any deliberate attempt at deception.
“These documents establish that on January 25, 2017 – the day after the agents ambushed him at the White House – the agents and DOJ officials knew General Flynn’s statements were not material to any investigation, that he was open and forthcoming with the agents, that he had no intent to deceive them, and that he believed he was fully truthful with them,” the filing reads.
Flynn, who joined the White House in early 2017, had pleaded guilty twice to making false statements to FBI agents about his dealings with a Russian diplomat in late 2016. He was fired as national security advisor after just 24 days on the job.
The Justice Department moved to drop the charges against Flynn in May over investigative misconduct, though the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has so far frustrated that effort.