 |
The head table of a gala celebrating the tenth anniversary of Russia Today in December of 2015 included Russian President Vladimir Putin and American retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.Mikhail Klimentyev / Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, file
 |
 |
| 3 Star General Michael T. Flynn, President Trump's former National Security Adviser |
VietPress USA (Dec. 18, 2018):One year agon, on April 18, 2017, NBCNews reported that "It was a (red) star-studded affair, the December 2015 dinner celebrating the 10th birthday of Russian TV network RT. At a luxe Moscow hotel, President Vladimir Putin and a host of Russian luminaries toasted a state-backed news channel that U.S. intelligence calls a Kremlin mouthpiece.
And next to Putin at the head table, in the seat of honor, was an American. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who would later become Donald Trump's national security adviser, was already advising Trump's presidential campaign when he was paid $45,000 to speak at the gala.
"It is not coincidence that Flynn was placed next to President Putin," said Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador in Moscow from 2012 to 2014 and now an NBC News analyst. "Flynn was considered a close Trump adviser. Why else would they want him there?"
Flynn's Moscow jaunt, like his oddly timed phone chats with the Russian ambassador, has been well reported. But who else came to dinner on Dec. 10, 2015? An NBC News review of video and photos from the RT gala shows a healthy serving of ex-spies, cronies and oligarchs, with a side of friendly journalists and another American.
Flynn was one of 10 people at the head table, including the Kremlin's top leadership. Three of the Russians, including Putin, were under U.S. sanctions at the time for their role in Russia's annexation of Crimea."
Today on Tuesday Dec. 18, 2018, judge Emmet Sullivan called Michael T. Flynn "disgust" and indicated he was considering a prison sentence — even though prosecutors had recommended no jail time for the retired three-star general.
“Arguably, you sold your country out,” the judge Emmet Sullivan said. “I cannot assure you if we proceed today you will not receive a sentence of incarceration. I cannot hide my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense.”
According to Hunter Walker, White House Correspondent for Yahoo News, shortly after President Trump’s former top national security adviser Michael Flynn was excoriated by a federal judge on Tuesday morning, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders offered him warm wishes from the West Wing. Sanders made her comments at a White House press briefing when asked about Judge Emmet Sullivan’s decision to delay Flynn’s sentencing for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials.
“The delay is something between Gen. Flynn and the courts,” Sanders said, adding, “In the meantime we wish Gen. Flynn well and will continue to focus on doing what we do here every single day.”
Sanders’s remarks in the briefing room were not the first kind words for Flynn from the White House. Ahead of the sentencing on Tuesday morning, Trump took to Twitter to wish Flynn “good luck today in court.”
Flynn, a retired general, joined the White House when Trump took office in January 2017. His tenure lasted less than a month, and he was fired in February 2017 after reports that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contact with Russia’s former ambassador to the U.S. In November 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI during an interview with agents that was conducted while he was in the Trump administration.
Read this full report from Yahoo News at:
VietPress USA News
In ‘disgust,’ judge threatens Flynn with prison, but delays sentencing
WASHINGTON — The sentencing for former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, scheduled for Tuesday morning, was unexpectedly postponed after a federal judge said Flynn’s conduct left him with “disgust,” and indicated he was considering a prison sentence — even though prosecutors had recommended no jail time for the retired three-star general.
Flynn’s admitted crime of lying to the FBI while occupying a top post in the Trump administration, and his acceptance of a six-figure lobbying contract from a foreign government while serving as a national security adviser to Trump during the campaign “undermines everything this flag stands for,” Judge Emmet Sullivan lectured the defendant in a blunt tirade that startled the packed courtroom.
“Arguably, you sold your country out,” the judge said. “I cannot assure you if we proceed today you will not receive a sentence of incarceration. I cannot hide my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense.”
Flynn had pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to the FBI regarding his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition. Sullivan pressed him on whether he knew he was lying at the time, and understood that it was a crime. Flynn said he did.
Sullivan later walked back one portion of his comments, acknowledging that he had wrongly accused Flynn of working as an unregistered agent of the government of Turkey while serving in the White House. In fact, Flynn had ended his work for Turkey before he joined the White House staff, although he has admitted filing false information about hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds he received from Turkey during the 2016 campaign, claiming his client was a foreign businessman rather than the government in Ankara itself.
Sullivan’s dressing-down of Flynn — who memorably shouted, “Lock her up!” about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Republican convention — seemed to catch his lawyers, his family members in the courtroom and even prosecutors from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office by surprise.
Mueller’s team had cited Flynn’s extensive cooperation with the investigation in calling for leniency from the judge. Exactly what Flynn disclosed is not public, and he has not been called to testify in open court. Sullivan pressed prosecutors on whether Flynn’s cooperation was completed, and noted it is “rare” to sentence a defendant before that point, inviting Flynn’s team to reconsider their agreement to be sentenced right now.
After a 30-minute break, Flynn’s chief lawyer, Robert Kelner, told Sullivan, “We are prepared to take Your Honor up on his suggestion so [Flynn] can eke out the last measure of his cooperation” in another case unrelated to Mueller’s investigation. That involves the indictment of two businessmen, unsealed by federal prosecutors in Virginia on Monday, for lobbying for Turkey in 2016 without registering with the Justice Department — a case for which Flynn is potentially a key witness as an unindicted co-conspirator and which could take months, if not longer, to litigate. Sullivan scheduled a status conference on the matter for March, but the actual sentencing will now likely be put off much longer than that.
For all the harsh condemnation of the conduct of the president’s former national security adviser, the proceedings today offered a glimmer of hope for the White House and its allies that the Mueller probe may be nearing its end.
Mueller’s prosecutors, in a sentencing memo two weeks ago, had praised Flynn’s cooperation in several federal probes, including providing “first-hand information” about contacts between the Trump transition team and the Kremlin — an issue that is at the core of the Russia probe.
www.Vietpressusa.us
