The Justice Department on Thursday dropped its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, in a stunning development that comes after internal memos were released raising serious questions about the nature of the investigation that led to Flynn’s late 2017 guilty plea of lying to the FBI.
The announcement came in a court filing, with the department saying it is dropping the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”
The documents were first obtained by The Associated Press. DOJ sources confirmed the decision to Fox News.
The retired Army lieutenant general for months has been trying to withdraw his plea, aided by a new attorney who has aggressively challenged the prosecution’s case and conduct. But the case has been plodding through the court system with no resolution ever since his original plea, even amid speculation about whether President Trump himself could extend a pardon.
MUELLER PROSECUTOR WITHDRAWS FROM FLYNN CASE AFTER QUESTIONS SURFACE CONCERNING HIS COMPLIANCE WITH COURT ORDER
The DOJ decision would appear to put an end to that process.
Earlier Thursday, the top prosecutor on the case, Brandon Van Grack, abruptly withdrew from the case, without explanation, in a brief filing with the court.
Breadcrumbs were being dropped in the days preceding the decision that his case could be reconsidered. Documents unsealed a week ago by the Justice Department revealed agents discussed their motivations for interviewing him in the Russia probe—questioning whether they wanted to“get him to lie” so he’d be fired or prosecuted, or get him to admit wrongdoing. Flynn allies howled over the revelations, arguing that he was essentially set up in a perjury trap. In that interview, Flynn did not admit wrongdoing and instead was accused of lying about his contacts with the then-Russian ambassador – to which he pleaded guilty.
Then on Wednesday, the DOJ released a mostly unredacted version of former acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s August 2017 “scope memo,” outlining the authority then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller had for his investigation. That document revealed for the first time that Mueller’s authority went significantly beyond what was previously known.
Rosenstein’s memo was known to have authorized Mueller to probe “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation,” and “any other matters within the scope of [obstruction of justice laws].”
But the new document made clear that Rosenstein authorized a deep-dive criminal probe into the Trump campaign that extended well beyond Russian interference efforts.
The memo revealed that Mueller was, among other things, looking into whether Flynn “committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian government officials during the period of the Trump transition.”
That was an apparent reference to the Logan Act, which is an obscure statute that has never been successfully used in a criminal prosecution and was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad.
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