Admitted perjurer Michael Flynn gets an astonishingly sweet deal from Bill Barr’s “Justice” Department.
© David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
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In December 2016, President Obama announced punishing economic sanctions against Russia in retaliation for its email thefts and other actions taken to help elect Donald Trump. The purpose of the sanctions was to let Russia know that its election operation, which had been undertaken with Trump’s encouragement, would not be rewarded.
Michael Flynn, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, wanted to send a very different message to the Russians. In a secret conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Flynn reassured the Russian that the incoming administration would steer U. S.-Russia relations in a different direction. Obama was trying to punish Russia for its act, and Flynn was trying to undermine the punishment. (Weeks later, Congress would vote to lock in sanctions by a veto-proof margin, enraging Trump and prompting him to try, futilely, to undo them.)
At the time, Flynn’s secret conservation with Kislyak was closely related to the FBI’s ongoing investigation into illicit contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Flynn falsely told a pair of FBI agents that he and Kislyak had not discussed sanctions. His motive to lie was obvious: The sanctions threatened to deny Russia the payment it had been sniffing around Trump’s campaign for. Two years later, he confessed in court to having committed perjury.
Now that the special counsel that prosecuted Flynn is gone, and the Department of Justice now in the hands of Trump loyalist William Barr, the department has abandoned its own prosecution. The rationale for forgiving Flynn’s lies is that the FBI had no reason to talk to Flynn in the first place. Even if this objection were valid — and there is much more to say about this, because it cuts to the heart of the issue — it would hardly justify the extraordinary favor Flynn received from the Justice Department yesterday. FBI agents interview people all the time. People often get convicted if they lie.
It is vanishingly rare, perhaps completely unprecedented, for the Department of Justice to turn around and withdraw its charges against a confessed perjurer.
