The Justice of the United States drops the charges against the ex-adviser of Security Michael Flynn | International

The United States Department of Justice has decided to drop the charges on Michael Flynn, the first National Security adviser to the Donald Trump Administration and one of the first to be killed in the investigation of the Russian plot in early 2017. The controversial decision comes after a sharp flurry from Flynn’s defense. In late 2017, the decorated general was had convicted the FBI of false testimony on his contacts with Moscow and had worked with the investigation of special prosecutor Robert S. Mueller, awaiting a more benevolent sentence. However, earlier this year, Flynn decided to withdraw that statement and accuse the feds of acting in “bad faith.”

Flynn resigned as head of the National Security Council on February 13, 2017, when the Donald Trump Administration had not been alive for a month, transcending that he had lied and hidden his contacts with the Russian ambassador in Washington, Sergei Kislyak, in the month of December. With the Republican already elected but Barack Obama still in office, Flynn discussed with the diplomat the sanctions that the Democratic Administration had imposed on Russia for its interference in the US presidential elections in November, which sought to favor Trump’s victory. In late 2017, the general pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on this matter and agreed to collaborate with Mueller, who had taken over the Russian plot in May of that year. In fact, in December 2018 a federal judge agreed to postpone his sentence while the special prosecutor continued with the investigations, which ended in the spring of 2019.

That postponement has saved Michael Flynn. Last January he changed his third, went on the offensive and found a attorney general, William Barr, receptive to his demands. Barr, appointed by Trump a year and a half ago, commissioned the review of the case by an outside prosecutor, an infrequent and highly controversial move given the politically explosive nature of this case. “After reviewing all the facts and circumstances of this case, including new information,” states the Justice Department motion, the Government has concluded that the questioning of the general “was unrelated and unjustified by the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn. “

In its motion, the Department argues that the crime of false testimony, to be so, requires not only the condition of false, but also “materially false”. For the Government, the interrogation of Flynn on January 24, 2017 “was carried out on a legitimate investigative basis, so that he does not believe that Mr. Flynn’s statements were material, even if they were not true.” The prosecutor who led this investigation, Brandon L. Van Grack, withdrew from the case earlier this Thursday.

Trump grew up this Thursday before the judicial outcome. “He is an innocent man,” he said at the White House, “now he is even an older warrior.” Flynn (Fort Meade, Maryland, 1958) became the chief intelligence officer for elite units such as the SEALs and Delta, but Obama fired him in 2014. Outside of the Army, he opened a consulting firm that fell into Russian orbit. He was deeply involved in the campaign for Trump and this put him on the front line, although for less than a month. For months there was a rumor that the Republican wanted to pardon him. It will no longer be necessary.

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