Politico reports:

Outgoing President Donald Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday for lying to FBI agents investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” the president tweeted. “Congratulations to @GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”

Trump’s move is an extraordinary intervention on behalf of an ally who pleaded guilty in 2017 and has spent the last two years fighting to overturn his original plea. It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s pardon also included Flynn’s failure to register as an agent of Turkey in 2016, a crime to which he admitted as part of his plea agreement.

Before reversing course, Flynn initially cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller for nearly two years, including by providing evidence of potential obstruction of justice by the president. He sat for 19 interviews with prosecutors.

Trump had long been expected to pardon Flynn, pummeling prosecutors and the FBI for their handling of the case, part of a concerted attack on the investigations against him. Trump has falsely accused the FBI and Justice Department of mounting a “coup” against him in the years after his election. Trump also repeatedly attacked prosecutors and FBI officials involved in the Flynn case, even though he fired Flynn for lying to both the bureau and Vice President Mike Pence in early 2017.

Though the pardon was long in the making, Trump allowed Flynn’s legal drama to play out for more than three years, waiting until after the Nov. 3 election to issue clemency, a signal of how politically explosive the case has become. Flynn has become a revered figure to Trump’s base, and Flynn’s attorney — conservative firebrand Sidney Powell — has recently become a prominent Trump surrogate promoting baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud against Trump.

Top Democrats have already warned they would consider any effort by Trump to pardon his associates to be an abuse of power, akin to the one the House impeached him for almost a year ago. After the pardon was issued, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler slammed the decision as an erosion of the rule of law, meant to reward an ally for resisting an investigation that involved Trump himself. [Continue reading…]