The Department of Justice on Thursday announced that it was dropping the criminal case against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former national security adviser for President Donald Trump.
Court documents released Thursday, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, reveal the DOJ decided to drop the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” The court documents further revealed that the DOJ concluded that the ill-fated FBI interview of Flynn on January 24, 2017 was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”
Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney assigned to review Flynn’s case, said in a statement that he had recommended the case be dropped to Attorney General William Barr last week. Jensen formalized the recommendation this week.
“Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case,” Jensen said. “I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”
The move comes just weeks after newly unsealed documents revealed the FBI questioned whether its interview with Flynn was about “Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”
As Fox News editor Gregg Re previously reported, handwritten notes written by former FBI general counsel James A Baker on the day of Flynn’s interview suggested the lieutenant general was not brought in to discuss his phone call with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, but was instead being set up to get fired. Flynn made the phone call to Kislyak as part of the Trump transition team after the 2016 election. The phone call was leaked by someone in the Obama administration as part of the effort to claim Trump was working with Russia to undermine America. Former President Barack Obama had fired Flynn from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 and warned the Trump administration against hiring him.
Former FBI Director James Comey even admitted that the interview of Flynn did not follow standard protocol. Flynn was pressured to not have an attorney present for the interview, and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe called the interview “very odd” since “it seemed like [Flynn] was telling the truth.”
Further, the FBI had decided previously that Flynn was not a Russian agent and to drop the investigation into him, but then-FBI special agent Peter Strozk (who was later fired from the FBI for sending text messages suggesting he wanted an “insurance policy” to get rid of Trump) intervened and kept the investigation going.
As the DOJ made clear Thursday, there was never any basis to interview Flynn in the first place. Flynn previously pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, a plea he has since tried to withdraw, as it was revealed FBI agents had a transcript of his phone call and pressed him on specific details he couldn’t recall correctly without his own transcript.
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