Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn told the special counsel’s office that people connected to US President Donald Trump’s administration and Congress sought to influence his cooperation with the Russia investigation, and he provided a voicemail recording of one such communication, prosecutors said in a court filing made public on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the judge in the case ordered that portions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that relate to Flynn be unredacted and made public by the end of the month.
The order from US District Judge Emmet Sullivan is the first time a judge is known to have directed the Department of Justice to make public any portion of the report that the agency had kept secret.
Photo: AP
It could set up a conflict with US Attorney General William Barr, whose team spent weeks blacking out from the report grand jury information, details of ongoing investigations and other sensitive information.
Prosecutors revealed details about Flynn’s communications in a court filing aimed at showing the extent of his cooperation with Mueller’s investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Flynn, a vital witness in the probe, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts during the presidential transition period in 2016 with the-then Russian ambassador to the US.
Prosecutors did not identify the people with whom Flynn was in touch nor did they describe the exact conversations.
However, they said Flynn recounted multiple instances in which “he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation.”
Prosecutors say they were unaware of some of those instances, which took place before and after his guilty plea, until Flynn told them about them.
Mueller’s report did not reach a conclusion on whether Trump illegally obstructed justice, but he did examine nearly a dozen episodes for potential obstruction, including efforts by the president to discourage cooperation.
The report shows that after Flynn began cooperating with the government, an unidentified Trump lawyer left a message with Flynn’s attorneys reminding them that the president still had warm feelings for Flynn and asking for a “heads-up” if Flynn knew damaging information about the president.
Sullivan ordered prosecutors to give him a copy of the audio recording they reference in the court filing and to make public a transcript of that call. He also directed them to file publicly transcripts of any calls with Russian officials, such as then-ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn was supposed to have been sentenced in December last year, with prosecutors saying he was so cooperative and helpful in their investigation that he was entitled to avoid prison.
However, after a judge sharply criticized Flynn during his sentencing hearing, Flynn asked for it to be postponed so that he could continue cooperating with prosecutors and reduce the likelihood of being sent to prison.
The document also details how Flynn assisted investigators as they looked into whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to sway the outcome of the 2016 election.
Flynn described to investigators statements from senior campaign officials in 2016 about WikiLeaks — which received and published Democratic e-mails that were hacked by Russian intelligence officers “to which only a select few people were privy,” prosecutors said.
That includes conversations with senior campaign officials “during which the prospect of reaching out to WikiLeaks was discussed.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion