Trump tells allies he plans to pardon Michael Flynn: report

President Trump has told close allies he plans to pardon his former national security adviser Michael Flynn, Axios reported Tuesday.

Several unnamed sources with knowledge of the president’s thinking confirmed to Axios that a possible Flynn pardon would come as part of a series of pardons he plans to issue in his remaining days in office. White House representatives did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill.

Fox News reporter Kevin Corke later confirmed the report.

Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s former ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in 2017, has been involved in a protracted legal battle since the beginning of this year over whether his charges should be dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.

A prosecutor tapped by Attorney General William Barr to review the charges against Flynn has recommended that they be dropped, but an appeals court sided with U.S. District Judge Emmett Sullivan’s decision to not drop the charges and order an outside legal expert to evaluate the case. That appeals court also rejected Flynn’s request for Sullivan to recuse himself from the case over charges that he had acted improperly as well.

He previously agreed to plead guilty to the charge of lying to FBI agents and cooperated with the now-shuttered special counsel investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign in an effort that saw his sentencing delayed for years, before withdrawing his plea agreement in early 2020.

A Trump pardon of Flynn would potentially end his former adviser’s legal woes before an attorney general appointed by his successor, President-elect Joe Biden, could be installed next year.