President Trump rejoiced when he heard the Justice Department was dropping its criminal case against his former national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
“So I’m very happy for General Flynn. He was a great warrior, and he still is a great warrior. Now, in my book, he’s an even greater warrior. What happened to him should never happen again,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday.
“He was an innocent man. He is a great gentleman. He was targeted by the Obama administration, and he was targeted in order to try and take down a president. And what they’ve done is a disgrace, and I hope a big price is going to be paid,” he added. “A big price should be paid. There’s never been anything like this in the history of our country. What they did, what the Obama administration did is unprecedented. It’s never happened.”
Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with a Russian diplomat before Trump entered the White House but after swapping legal teams pushed for a dismissal of the case while arguing the FBI mistreated him. The Justice Department moved to drop the criminal charges against him in a court filing submitted Thursday.
Flynn’s lawyers claimed FBI records released last week were exculpatory evidence and were inappropriately concealed from the defense team. The documents suggest that then-FBI agent Peter Strzok and the FBI’s leadership stopped the bureau from closing its investigation into Flynn in early January 2017 after investigators had uncovered “no derogatory information” on him.
Last month, FBI notes were released that showed an agent talked about whether the goal of a late January 2017 interview was to get Flynn to tell the truth or to catch him in a lie so that they could prosecute him.
Upon the release of the notes, the president said they were an indication of “total exoneration.”
“They tormented him. Dirty cops tormented Gen. Flynn,” he said. “What they did to Gen. Flynn and, by the way, to Roger Stone and to others, was a disaster and a disgrace, and it should never be allowed to happen in this country again.”
Trump said in March he was considering a “full” pardon for Flynn and, more recently, suggested he would be willing to invite Flynn back into his administration.
