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| Trump pardons Russian operative Michael Flynn. |
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In the remaining weeks of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, the outgoing leader will eventually pardon controversial figures. An expected pardon will go to former National Security Adviser and former U.S. Army General Michael Flynn, Sr.
Flynn, who pled guilty to a felony count of “willfully and knowingly” making false statements to the FBI. He agreed to cooperate with the Robert Mueller Special Counsel’s Investigation into whether the Trump Presidential Campaign colluded with the Russian Federation.
Flynn lied about registering as a foreign operative. He also conducted a plot to kidnap a critic of the Turkish government living in the United States.
Who couldn't forget the infamous picture of Flynn with 2016 Green Party nominee Jill Stein sitting at the dinner table with the federation's president for life, Vladimir Putin.
Flynn who is expected to face a federal sandwich of five years in federal timeout may be commuted and pardoned by Trump.
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| Flynn is the only National Security Adviser to last only three weeks. |
To date, Trump's record on presidential pardons has been marked by personal connections, showmanship and an aversion to going through official government channels.
Beneficiaries have won clemency by getting their requests to Trump through friends, Fox News personalities or Hollywood celebrities who talk to the President. That unusual pipeline has worked for people like Joe Arpaio, a former Arizona sheriff, Dinesh D'Souza, right-wing commentator, and Michael Milken, a financier convicted of securities fraud.
Trump has also granted pardons at the urging of Kim Kardashian West, who made her case in the Oval Office. And earlier this year, he commuted the sentence of his longtime confidant Roger Stone, whose conviction stemmed from the Mueller investigation.
Flynn's tenure at the White House lasted just a few weeks -- he resigned after getting caught in a public lie about his Russian contacts.
He pleaded guilty in late 2017 to lying to the FBI about those contacts, but later disavowed his plea and tried to get the case thrown out. In a shocking twist this spring, the Justice Department abandoned the case, which is still tied up in legal limbo.
President Trump is said to be planning to pardon Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. https://t.co/vhecb11q9l
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 25, 2020
Throughout the saga, Flynn has narrowly avoided being sentenced.
He's also become an emblem of Trump's persistent efforts to undermine the Russia investigation and a conduit for testing the separation of powers between judges and prosecutors.
The Justice Department has argued Flynn never should have been questioned by the FBI in January 2017 and put in the position where he lied.
In September, Flynn and the Justice Department returned to court for the first time in months to argue his case should be dismissed. US District Judge Emmet Sullivan, however, had previously made clear that he might consider sentencing Flynn for his lies.
In the last major hearing where Flynn appeared before Sullivan, in late 2018, the judge grew so incensed with Flynn's crime and legal approach that he questioned whether the former national security adviser could have been charged with treason. Prosecutors said no.
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