A federal judge on Tuesday told President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn that “arguably you sold your country out” by holding conversations after that 2016 presidential election with Russia’s ambassador to the United States that Flynn later lied about to the FBI.
Judge Emmet Sullivan warned Flynn that if he did not accept an offer to postpone his ongoing sentencing hearing, “I can not assure you that if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration.”
“This is a very serious offense,” said Sullivan in U.S. District Court in Washington, where both Flynn’s lawyers and prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office were prepared to argue for a sentence as low as no time in jail.
“A high ranking senior official of the government making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while in the White House,” Sullivan said. “Arguably, you sold your country out. The court is going to consider all that.”
“Very serious crime,” Sullivan said. “Can’t minimize that.”
Sullivan offered Flynn the chance to postpone the sentencing in light of prosecutors’ statements that he could continue cooperating with them.
“If you want to postpone this, and come back at some later point … that’s fine with me,” the judge said.
“I have to caution you that the sentence imposed today may not be the same sentence you would get after cooperation ends,” Sullivan said. “The court likes to be in a position to say there is nothing else this defendant can to do help the United States of America.”
Sullivan called a recess in the case until 12:30 p.m.
Federal sentencing guidelines have recommended that Flynn serve between zero to six months in jail for the charge, lodged against him by Mueller.
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Brandon Van Grack, a prosecutor in Mueller’s office, told Sullivan that “it remains a possibility” that Flynn could continue to cooperate with Mueller’s ongoing investigations.
Van Grack noted that Flynn, in addition to other significant assistance, had “provided substantial assistance” to federal prosecutors in Virginia, who on Monday revealed charges against two former Flynn associates in a case in which they are accused of acting as unregistered agents of the government of Turkey.
Van Grack, in response to a question by the judge, said Flynn could have been charged in that case with conspiring with those men, Bijan Kian and Kamil Alptekin, to smear and win the extradition of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen at the behest and funding of the government of Turkey.
The special counsel, citing Flynn’s extensive cooperation with ongoing investigations by Mueller, had asked Sullivan to sentence Flynn on the low end of that range, with possiblity no time at all in jail.
Sullivan began the hearing by pushing Flynn and his defense lawyers on their suggestion in a recent court filing that he might have been unfairly treated by the FBI in the case, which was lodged by Mueller.
The retired Army lieutenant general Flynn, 60, told Sullivan that he did not want to withdraw his guilty plea or to challenge the fairness of the FBI interview that led to his plea.
Flynn’s lawyer told the judge he had not been entrapped by the FBI.
“I was aware” that lying to the FBI was a crime, Flynn said, declining an offer by Sullivan to pospone the sentencing.
Some supporters of Flynn — along with Trump — had suggested he did not know that.
Defense lawyers last week in their court filing noted that Flynn did not have an attorney with during that Jan. 24, 2017, interview, nor did agents warn him that he could be prosecuted if he lied to them.
“I can not recall any incident in which the court accepted a guilty plea in which he was not guilty, and I don’t intend to start today,” Sullivan said.
“Are you continuing to accept responsibility for your false statements?” Sullivan asked.
“I am, your honor,” Flynn answered.
Flynn’s lawyer Robert Kelner told Sullivan that the reason the defense had talked about the circumstances of the FBI interview was because, “We thought it was important for us to explain to the court those aggravating circumstances that are not present here today.”
Kelner noted that a former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopolous and other targets of Mueller had been warned of the risk of lying to investigators, and those defendants “did have counsel and lied anyway.”
But Kelner also said of Flynn, “He fully accepts responsibility, stands by his guilty plea which was made based on knowing and willing conduct.”
Since pleading guilty last December, Flynn has been cooperating with Mueller’s ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He has met more than 19 times with Mueller’s team and other investigators.
Mueller, in asking for leniency for Flynn, had cited Flynn’s help in uncovering contacts between Russian government officials and members of Trump’s presidential transition team.
Flynn’s scheduled sentencing comes a week after Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison for financial crimes, and for campaign violations related to hush-money payments shortly before the election to two women who claim to have had affairs with Trump.
Cohen also had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about details of an aborted plan by the Trump Organization to build a tower in Moscow.
Trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort, a longtime Republican consultant, is scheduled to be sentenced for bank and tax fraud charges on Feb. 8.
Those crimes relate to Manafort’s work in Ukraine on behalf of pro-Russia politicians before he joined Trump’s campaign.
Flynn was interviewed by FBI agents just two days after being sworn in as national security advisor.
In that interview, according to court documents, he claimed that he did not recall ever asking then-Russia ambassador Sergei Kislyak during a phone call in December 2016 to not have Russia retaliate against the United States for sanctions imposed on the country after accusations that Russia had interfered in the recent presidential election.
Flynn also told the agents, “No,” when asked if he made any comment to Kislyak about Russia voting in a certain manner at the United Nations on a resolution sponsored by Egypt condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Both of those statements to the agents were false.
Flynn resigned after just 24 days in office after he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Flynn.
Hours before Flynn was sentenced, Trump wished him “good luck” in a tweet that also again reiterated the president’s claim that his campaign did not collude with Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. Mueller is continuing to investigate that possibility.
Last year, a day after Flynn pleaded guilty, Trump had said in a tweet: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
