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Flynn sought to withdraw the guilty plea in January, arguing
that prosecutors violated his rights and duped him into a plea
agreement. Trump said the FBI and Justice Department had
"destroyed" Flynn's life and that of his family, and cited an
unspecified, unsubstantiated report that they had lost records
related to Flynn.
"I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!" Trump said on
Twitter.
Flynn was supposed to help cooperate with the government as part
of his plea deal. But he later switched lawyers and tactics,
arguing that prosecutors in the case had violated his rights and
tricked him into lying about his December 2016 conversations
with Sergei Kislyak, then Moscow's ambassador in Washington.
The Department of Justice has repeatedly denied allegations of
prosecutorial misconduct, and U.S. District Court Judge Emmet
Sullivan rejected all of Flynn’s claims in December and set a
sentencing date.
Shortly after that, Flynn filed the motion to withdraw his plea.
Flynn, who also previously led the Defense Intelligence Agency,
served just 24 days in the Republican Trump administration
before he was fired in January 2017.
He was one of several former Trump aides to plead guilty or be
convicted at trial in former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation that detailed Moscow's interference in the 2016
U.S. election to boost Trump's candidacy, as well as numerous
contacts between Trump's campaign and Russia.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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