Judge Emmet Sullivan expressed “disdain” and “disgust” for Flynn’s crimes and, despite the government’s request for leniency, postponed a status hearing until March.
Lawyers for retired general Michael Flynn had every reason to celebrate. They managed to get their client—who had lobbied against U. S. interests while serving as a top Donald Trump campaign surrogate, and tried to undermine the Obama administration’s Russia policy while still a private citizen, and, as a sitting national security adviser, worked to conceal it all from the Justice Department—a recommendation of no jail time from the government. But they appeared to have made a last-minute miscalculation that put Flynn’s potential lenient sentence in doubt.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating a potential conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, appeared to let Flynn off the hook for his crimes in exchange for his cooperation in the Russia probe and an investigation into illegal lobbying for the Turkish government that is being conducted out of the Eastern District of Virginia. Flynn is also cooperating in a third investigation, the nature of which remains unknown. Indeed, before Tuesday’s hearing, it had appeared all but certain that Flynn’s decision assist the government early and fully would spare him jail time. But that leniency apparently wasn’t enough for Flynn’s lawyers.
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In a sentencing memo filed last week, Flynn’s lawyers Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony indicated that the FBI agents who interviewed the former national security adviser in January 2017 about his conversations with the former Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak had entrapped him, lulled him into a false sense of security, and failed to insist that he have a lawyer present for the interview.
Judge Emmet Sullivan, however, who was set to issue Flynn’s sentence on Monday, was not sympathetic. “How is raising these points consistent with accepting responsibility?” he asked Flynn and his lawyers as they stood before him at the lectern on Tuesday. He then lambasted Flynn for lying to federal agents on White House grounds while serving as the president’s top national security adviser in January 2017, and for lying about his lobbying work for the Turkish government. “Arguably, you sold out your country,” Sullivan said. He added that while he would take Flynn’s 33-year public service career and cooperation into account when sentencing him, he would not try to hide his “disdain” and “disgust” for Flynn’s crime, and asked the government at one point whether Flynn’s conduct rose to the level of treason.
Flynn’s lies to the FBI were brazen, according to a summary of the agents’ interview with him last January that was released on Monday night. The summary, known as a 302, reveals that Flynn falsely stated that he did not recall discussing with Kislyak the Obama administration’s new sanctions, expulsion of diplomats and shuttering of Russian compounds in response to Moscow’s election interference.
