Judge cancels Michael Flynn sentencing
Trump’s former national security adviser is seeking to withdraw his guilty plea.
A judge has indefinitely postponed former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing on a charge of lying to the FBI as Flynn presses to withdraw the guilty plea he entered more than two years ago in a case prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Flynn had been set for sentencing Feb. 27, but U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan announced on Monday that he was canceling the hearing “until further order of the court.”
A new set of defense attorneys retained by Flynn last year has been aggressively challenging the case against him — an uphill task given that Flynn publicly admitted his guilt under oath at a court hearing in December 2017 and reconfirmed those statements a year later at another court session.
In his guilty plea, Flynn admitted lying to FBI agents about his dealings with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition and making false statements about Trump transition officials’ lobbying on a United Nations resolution condemning Israel. Flynn also acknowledged that he signed Foreign Agent Registration Act filings that contained false statements about his work on a lobbying and advocacy project related to Turkey.
Last month, Flynn formally asked to withdraw his plea, arguing that prosecutors and the FBI double-crossed him and that his former attorneys failed to give him adequate legal advice about potential defenses in his case.
Prosecutors have rejected the claims of misconduct, but ina court filing on Sunday said they need more information from Flynn’s ex-lawyers in order to assess his assertion that he got inadequate assistance from them.
Sullivan set deadlines for more filings through early March, making it unlikely the retired Army general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief will be sentenced anytime soon. The judge has said he may hold a hearing on Flynn’s request to withdraw his plea, and that could involve live testimony from Flynn and his former lawyers.
If Flynn is sentenced on the false-statements felony charge, he faces a maximum possible term of five years in prison. However, prosecutors have urged the judge to impose a sentence in a range between no jail time and up to six months behind bars.
Flynn’s allies have also urged Trump to pardon his former aide. Trump, who fired Flynn in February 2017 after just a few weeks on the job, has been sympathetic to Flynn’s claims that he was set up but has been vague about whether a pardon is forthcoming.