Michael Flynn with Donald Trump in 2017: According to media reports, the former security advisor will be pardoned
Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
According to media reports, the outgoing US President Donald Trump wants to pardon his former security advisor Michael Flynn.
Trump is said to have told confidants that he wanted to pardon Flynn and other people while he was still in office.
This is reported by several media outlets, including the New York Times and CNN, citing people familiar with the matter.
Flynn was the first former member of the Trump administration to plead guilty in favor of Trump in an investigation into Russia's possible interference in the 2016 presidential election.
He had confessed to lying to the FBI about their investigation into the so-called Russia affair.
In January, however, he asked the court to withdraw his confession.
With the notice, Flynn risked an open outcome - from an acquittal to a long prison sentence.
Trump had already considered a pardon at the beginning of the year.
According to him, Flynn didn't break a law.
He regularly referred to the FBI's investigations into the Russia affair as a "witch hunt".
FBI special investigator Robert Mueller had found no evidence in his investigation, which was concluded around a year ago, that there had been secret agreements between the Trump campaign team and representatives of Russia before the 2016 election.
In his report, Mueller did not rule out a hindrance to the judicial investigation by Trump.
Nevertheless, the President found himself completely exonerated by Mueller's results.
Icon: enlarge
First the turkey, then his former security advisor?
Photo: HANNAH MCKAY / REUTERS
Trump had initiated the process of handing over office to Joe Biden shortly before the media reported about his pardon plans.
He has not yet admitted his defeat in the US election.
The Flynn case wasn't Trump's first pardon of the day.
At the traditional Thanksgiving ceremony where a turkey is kept from the oven, the current president made no mention of being voted out of office.
Instead, he celebrated the new record mark of more than 30,000 points in the US leading index Dow Jones, described the coronavirus again as the "China virus", welcomed progress in the development of a vaccine and affirmed his political motto "America First".
Icon: The mirror
cop / Reuters / AFP