President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that he is “strongly considering” a full pardon for former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The President’s tweet comes as America reels from the coronavirus outbreak, which has surpassed 3,000 cases and left at least 61 dead nationwide. In the tweet, Trump claimed that “the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has ‘lost’ the records of General Michael Flynn.”
The President appeared to be referencing a claim made by Flynn’s lawyers back in September that there was an internal Department of Justice memo that cleared Flynn of being a Russian agent – a memo that the prosecution could not produce.
A government lawyer on the Flynn case said those claims are irrelevant, noting they did not accuse Flynn of being a Russian agent. It was not immediately clear Sunday why Trump was referencing the exchange.
Flynn, who is a retired Army lieutenant general who served as Trump’s first national security adviser and resigned a month into the new administration, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in 2017 to charges that he lied to the FBI about a conversation he had with the then-ambassador to Russia. The aftermath of the conversation, including Trump’s encouragement of then-FBI Director James Comey to go easy on Flynn, led to the eventual appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.
Attorney General William Barr ordered a review of Flynn’s case last month.