U.S. Justice Department lawyers denied any corruption or political motives in efforts to get the federal criminal case against Flynn dropped. In May, Attorney General William Barr stunned many in the legal community by ordering prosecutors to have the case dropped. Flynn's defence counsel Sidney Powell at first declined to discuss the substance of her direct conversations with Trump, angering U.S. Judge Emmet Sullivan when she tried to invoke executive privilege. "I never discussed this case with the president until recently, when I asked him not to issue a pardon." Sullivan delayed that until Flynn could finish co-operating with the government in another pending criminal case out of Virginia.

Source: CBC News September 29, 2020 19:04 UTC