Michael Flynn Helped Robert Mueller in WikiLeaks, Obstruction Probes
President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn told Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team about top Trump campaign officials discussing plans to reach out to WikiLeaks after the group released emails stolen from Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager during the 2016 presidential contest, according to newly unredacted court documents.
In a filing concerning Flynn’s sentencing unredacted in federal court Thursday, prosecutors outlined his extensive cooperation in the Russia probe after he pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI in December 2017. In addition to providing investigators with evidence of “potential efforts to interfere or otherwise obstruct” the Russia investigation, Flynn is said to have given Mueller’s team insider information about discussions concerning WikiLeaks in Trump’s campaign.
While the unredacted Mueller Report detailed communications between WikiLeaks and figures within Trump’s orbit in the run-up to the 2016 election, the special counsel did not offer any conclusions about direct coordination between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks on the group's release of emails stolen from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta by Russian intelligence.
Mueller Report Reveals Shocking New Details About Trump, Russia, Obstruction
According to the court filing, however, Flynn filled investigators in on the reaction within the Trump campaign to news of WikiLeaks’ dump of Podesta’s emails—and they discussed making an overture in response.
“The defendant relayed to the government statements made in 2016 by senior campaign officials about Wikileaks to which only a select few people were privy,” prosecutors wrote. He “recalled conversations with senior campaign officials after the release of the Podesta emails, during which the prospect of reaching out to Wikileaks was discussed.”
Flynn is said to have also filled Mueller in on “multiple instances, both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the Administration or Congress that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation.”
“The defendant even provided a voicemail recording of one such communication,” the filing states.
Prosecutors appear to be referencing a voicemail left for Flynn’s lawyer after the former national security adviser withdrew from a joint defense agreement he had with the president early on in the Russia investigation. In the November 2017 voicemail, which was detailed in the Mueller Report, a lawyer for Trump urged Flynn’s lawyer to provide “some kind of heads up” if Flynn was preparing to provide “information that implicates the president.”
Flynn’s sentencing has yet to be determined by Judge Emmet Sullivan, but Mueller’s team has argued for a reduction in his sentence in light of his cooperation.
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