Donald Trump’s lawyer insisted Friday that Michael Flynn’s guilty plea hasn’t implicated the president in any wrongdoing, despite a report that the former National Security Advisor plans to testify that Trump himself directed him to reach out to Russians before Inauguration Day.
‘Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days during the Trump Administration, and a former Obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the FBI,’ Ty Cobb said.
‘The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year.’
‘Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn,’ Cobb continued.
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‘The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel’s work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.’
The White House itself remained mum on Friday, clamping down on communications after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Flynn agreed to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with Russians when he was a presidential candidate, according to ABC News.
That revelation cast a pall over the West Wing as senior aides geared up for an annual Christmas reception that could be less than merry.
Fox News Channel reports that the federal government said in court Friday that it was a ‘senior member’ of the Trump transition team – not an aide during the campaign itself – who directed Flynn to contact nations including Russia about a United Nations vote.
Trump is expected to deliver holiday remarks at the afternoon party. The room will be full of reporters, but the White House insists it’s strictly ‘off the record.’
Cobb represents Trump in the ongoing saga over whether his campaign colluded with Russians to swing the 2016 election.
Neither did White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and her deputy Raj Shah.
The White House has typically referred questions about Robert Mueller’s special counsel probe to Trump’s personal lawyers.
Those attorneys have insisted in the past that the president himself is not under investigation.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One last month during his trip to Asia that ‘everybody knows there was no collusion’ between his campaign and the Kremlin.
‘There is no collusion. There’s nothing,’ he said.
TEAM TRUMP FOR PRISON 2018: THE OTHER AIDES ALREADY FACING JAIL – SO WHO WILL MUELLER TARGET NEXT?
PAUL MANAFORT
Trump campaign manager March – August 2016
Manafort, 68, was charged with conspiracy against the US, conspiracy to launder, and other charges, after US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia undertook a campaign of hacking and misinformation to tilt the election in Trump’s favor. He pleaded not guilty in October to a 12-count indictment by a federal grand jury.
RICK GATES
Business associate and deputy to Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
Gates, 45, was indicted along with his business associate, Paul Manafort after the first charges from the probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election were unsealed. He pleaded not guilty to a 12-count indictment
George Papadopoulos
Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, March 2016 – January 2017
Papadopoulos, 30, pleaded guilty on October 5 to making false statements to investigators about his conversations with overseas sources about potential Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Flynn spoke with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak after the 2016 election concerning a raft of sanctions the Obama administration had just imposed on Moscow.
Intelligence intercepts established what he talked about, but he hid the truth from the FBI.
Flynn reportedly asked Kislyak to delay reaction to the Obama sanctions until after Trump took office, a hint that the incoming president might reverse them.
A law called the Logan Act established that only the incumbent administration can negotiate with foreign powers. At the time of Flynn’s contact with Kislyak, Trump had won the election but was not yet sworn in.
ABC News reported Friday morning that Flynn is cooperating with the Mueller probe, and is prepared to testify that Trump ‘directed him to make contact with the Russians’ – back when he was still a candidate.
But a Fox Business Network report portrays Trump as confident that he is still not a target of the investigation.
‘I spoke to one person who spoke to the president directly,’ an FBN reporter said on-air.
‘The president has been telling associates of his – I would say associates as friends and people that talk to the president regularly – that he believes, based on his conversations with his lawyer Ty Cobb, that he believes that he will be cleared in the Russian probe,’ he said.
‘The president is saying on the Russian matter, he believes it is done for him and he is going to be able to announce that soon.’
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said last week on the Fox news Channel that the investigation would stop short of implicating his former boss.
‘That’s where it stops,’ he predicted, ‘and there has been never any indication that the President of the United States, or anyone else within that circle of the President of the United States, has done anything wrong.’
The FBI interviewed Flynn just a few days after Trump’s inauguration. The president fired him in February after White House officials learned that he had lied to the vice president about whether he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak.
‘My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the special counsel’s office reflect a decision I made in the best interest of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions,’ Flynn said in a statement on Friday.
He pleaded guilty to making ‘false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements’ – an offense which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.