DOJ releases Trump pardon of Flynn, seek court dismissal

The Department of Justice has released the transcript of President Donald Trump’s pardon of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who admitted to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts.

Trump’s pardon clears Flynn from anything related to the FBI’s Russia probe, the Mueller investigation and his secret lobbying for Turkey in 2016.

The pardon absolves Flynn from “any possible future perjury or contempt charge in connection with General Flynn’s sworn statements and any other possible future charge that this Court or the court-appointed amicus has suggested might somehow keep this criminal case alive over the government’s objection,” the Justice Department wrote, according to a transcript from Judge Emmet Sullivan, obtained by CNN.

READ MORE: Justice Department dropping Michael Flynn’s criminal case

theGRIO previously reported, Flynn was the only White House official charged in Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI days after the president’s January 2017 inauguration about conversations he had had during the presidential transition period with Russia’s ambassador.

The Justice Department moved to dismiss the case in May as part of a broader effort by Attorney General William Barr to scrutinize, and even undo, some of the decisions reached during the Russia investigation, which he has disparaged.

In its motion, the department argued that Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador — in which they discussed sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Russia for election interference — were appropriate and not material to the underlying counterintelligence investigation.

READ MORE: Trump pardons Flynn despite guilty plea in Russia probe

Meanwhile, Democrats have lambasted Flynn’s pardon, calling it undeserved and unprincipled.

“The President’s enablers have constructed an elaborate narrative in which Trump and Flynn are victims and the Constitution is subject to the whims of the president,” House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler said in a statement. “Americans soundly rejected this nonsense when they voted out President Trump. ”

In April, Trump tweeted, “What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!” 

Flynn is the second Trump associate convicted in the Russia probe to be granted clemency by the president. Trump commuted the sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone just days before he was to report to prison. 

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