U.S. President Donald Trump has told aides that he plans to issue a pardon to his former national security adviser Michael Flynn and that it is one of a string of pardons he plans to issue before leaving office, a person familiar with the discussions said Tuesday.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat during the presidential transition in late 2016. Trump’s plans were reported earlier by Axios.
In May, the Justice Department sought to withdraw its charges against Flynn. That move has since been tied up in federal court, challenged by the judge who presided over Flynn’s case, Emmet G. Sullivan.
Flynn changed his legal team last year and began seeking to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming he never lied to investigators. He has since become a hero figure on the pro-Trump right, cast as a decorated patriot victimized by the politically motivated Russia “hoax” investigation of Trump.
Trump himself has called Flynn “an innocent man,” saying he was targeted by Obama administration officials trying to “take down a president.”
In a late September hearing before Sullivan, a lawyer for Flynn, Sidney Powell, reluctantly admitted that she had recently spoken to Trump about the case, but said she had asked the President not to pardon her client.
Powell herself has drawn intense scrutiny recently, appearing alongside lawyers for Trump to press an unfounded case of election fraud.
Many departing presidents have issued pardons and commutations near the end of their terms. Former President Bill Clinton triggered particularly harsh criticism over his pardon of a wealthy Democratic donor in his final White House hours. But Democrats and legal experts fear that Trump will exercise his pardon power with a brazenness that shatters past precedent.
Trump has already commuted the sentence of Roger Stone, another associate ensnared in the Russia investigation who was convicted on seven felony counts and was to begin a 40-month term in federal prison.
Word of Trump’s intentions came on a day the President presided over the annual White House turkey pardon. Trump ignored shouted questions from reporters at the Rose Garden about whether he planned actual pardons before leaving office.