Flynn attorney tells U.S. court she discussed criminal case with Trump

U.S. Justice Department lawyers denied any corruption or political motives in efforts to get the federal criminal case against Flynn dropped. Flynn's defense counsel, Sidney Powell, offered few details about her talks with Trump, but said they spoke in person and that she asked the Republican president not to issue a pardon in the controversial case.

The lead attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday admitted to a federal judge that she has discussed the ongoing criminal case with the president, an extraordinary admission that raises questions about political interference. U.S. Justice Department lawyers denied any corruption or political motives in efforts to get the federal criminal case against Flynn dropped.

Flynn's defense counsel, Sidney Powell, offered few details about her talks with Trump but said they spoke in person and that she asked the Republican president not to issue a pardon in the controversial case. She also downplayed a letter she sent to senior Justice Department leaders last year in which she complained about how the department had handled the Flynn case.

"I spoke one time to the president about this case to inform him of the general status" of the litigation, Flynn's lead defense counsel, Sidney Powell, told a court hearing in a tense exchange with the judge regarding Flynn's criminal case. "I never discussed this case with the president until recently, when I asked him not to issue a pardon."

Powell's discussion of the case with Trump, along with her letter to senior Justice Department officials, are likely to further stoke debate over whether the Trump administration is improperly seeking to dismiss the case for political reasons - allegations the department has denied. "I wanted to appear today because the allegations against our office that we would somehow operate or act with a corrupt political motive are not true," Kenneth Clair Kohl, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia said. "I've never seen it in my entire career in our office and it didn't happen here."

Powell told U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan she thought he was biased against Flynn and intended to file a motion to ask him to recuse himself. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, was charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation that detailed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election to boost Trump's candidacy.

Flynn pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about his conversations before Trump took office with Sergey Kislyak, who was then Russia's ambassador to the United States, concerning U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia under President Barack Obama. He was due to be sentenced in December 2018.

Sullivan delayed that until Flynn could finish cooperating with the government in another pending criminal case out of Virginia. But Flynn last year switched lawyers and his new legal team claimed the FBI had set him up. In May, Attorney General William Barr stunned many in the legal community by ordering prosecutors to have the case dropped. Critics have accused Barr of giving special treatment to Trump allies.