US: Ex-Trump aide Flynn deserves up to 6 months in prison
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn deserves up to six months behind bars, the Justice Department said Tuesday, reversing its earlier position that he was entitled to avoid prison time because of his extensive co-operation with prosecutors.
The government’s sentencing memo is a sharp rebuke to Flynn’s new legal team, which for months has attacked special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and accused prosecutors of withholding information that they said was favourable to their client. A judge rejected those arguments last month.
Prosecutors who had initially praised Flynn’s co-operation said he had “retreated from his acceptance of responsibility” and “therefore is not entitled to any such credit unless he clearly and credibly disavows those statements.” They asked U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan to impose a sentence of zero to six months.
Flynn was to have been sentenced in December 2018 for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States, including about his request that Russia not escalate tensions with the U.S. in response to sanctions imposed by the Obama administration for election interference.
