President Donald Trump offered public well wishes to Michael Flynn, hours before his former national security adviser is set to be sentenced for lying to investigators about his contacts during the 2016 campaign with the Russian ambassador.
“Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn,” Trump said Tuesday on Twitter (TWTR). “Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign. There was no Collusion!”
The president’s posture toward Flynn stands in stark contrast to his public treatment of another close member of his inner circle who has been netted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election: his one-time personal attorney Michael Cohen.
He’s repeatedly criticized Cohen, who was sentenced last week to three years in prison, and called him a “rat” in a Sunday Twitter post.
Both men are cooperating with prosecutors. In exchange for Flynn’s help, Mueller didn’t press for any jail time.
Lawyers for Flynn—a three-time Bronze Star recipient—had criticized the FBI agents who initially interviewed the retired Army lieutenant general in January 2017, in their 178-page response to Mueller’s request for leniency, saying the agents didn’t warn Flynn of the penalties he faced for making false statements.
Mueller, acting on a court order, on Monday made public FBI agents’ notes from their interview with Flynn, which showed that Flynn was told the identities of the interviewing agents as well as the “nature of the interview.”