Michael Flynn’s reduced sentencing recommendation, which reportedly came about after intervention by a senior Department of Justice official, appears to be part of a pattern of interference in cases involving President Trump’s associates. Flynn’s shorter sentence recommendation happened in December 2019 but received less coverage due to Trump’s ongoing impeachment proceedings. With the news on February 11, 2020 that senior DOJ officials had intervened to shorten Roger Stone’s seven- to nine-year sentence recommendation following a Twitter outburst from Trump, Flynn’s case has received renewed public attention and scrutiny.

Trump has recently retaliated against people involved in the Mueller investigation and pushed for favorable treatment for his associates. After Stone’s sentence reduction, four Stone prosecutors resigned from the case and Trump withdrew his Treasury nomination of Jessie Liu who oversaw the Stone case.

CREW requested DOJ communications between DOJ officials, Attorney General William Barr, Trump, and Flynn or anyone representing him.

The records will reveal how complicit the DOJ and Barr are in accommodating Trump’s efforts to interfere in cases he’s personally interested in. It is highly unusual and alarming for senior DOJ officials to interfere in sentencing recommendations apparently at the direction of the president. Any evidence of DOJ collaboration with Trump on Flynn’s sentencing raises serious alarms about the integrity of the DOJ’s processes.

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