Former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, declined to reverse his guilty plea at a federal court in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. Flynn told Judge Emmet G. Sullivan that he was not, in fact, entrapped by FBI agents who interviewed him without a lawyer present. This is a reversal of his former claim.
Judge Emmet G. Sullivan offered his view of the issues raised by Flynn’s defense team in their request for a light sentence, including the possibility of entrapment, the fact that the deputy director of the FBI had advised Flynn not to have counsel present when he was interviewed by the FBI, and that the agents who interviewed him later said that he did not appear to have lied.
Sullivan said: “I cannot recall any incident in which the court has accepted a plea of guilty from someone who maintained he was not guilty and I don’t intend to start today.”
Flynn reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in December 2017, admitting he gave false statements to FBI agents and pledging to testify for the Special Counsel led by Robert Mueller — which was set up ostensibly to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Flynn’s purported false statements were about a phone conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisleyak after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in an upset electoral victory.
District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, a Bill Clinton appointee, asked Flynn and his lawyer Robert Kelner whether they felt the FBI agents had entrapped him or if they wanted to postpone this hearing to rethink the guilty plea. Flynn and Kelner declined and said that the general was “aware” that lying to the FBI was a crime.
Judge Sullivan accepted Flynn’s guilty plea, stating, “this is a very serious offense. a high-ranking senior official of the government making false statements to the FBI while on the physical premises of the White House.”
Before revealing Flynn’s sentence, Sullivan lambasted the general for his lobbying activity against an outspoken critic of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, which resulted in the indictment of two of Flynn’s associates this week. “You were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the National Security Adviser to the president,” he said. “Arguably, this undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably, you sold your country out. The court is going to consider all that… I am not hiding my disgust, my disdain for your criminal offense.”
—
Judge Sullivan said he would consider jail time, though prosecutors had asked him not to impose a jail term.
The court recessed for the morning without a sentence being handed down to Flynn.
Update: The judge took back his remarks on treason, noting that he had been mistaken about Flynn being an unregistered foreign agent while in the White House.
He delayed sentencing, scheduling a status hearing for March 13, 2019.
Why the reversal on the part of Flynn? Did the Deep State get to him somehow?
Turn to the final page about two other explosive revelations that have just come to light regarding more Mueller improprieties.
Everyone with a functioning brain knows Mueller is a crook and is getting away with crimes against America!!!!!
Mueller should be the first one to hang for lying and wasting money and making up s**t. What a piece of s**t!!
Mueller should be charged with obstructing justice and destroying evidence. He should be in prison
Why is there no date on this?