The Justice Department says it will not oppose probation for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn. It's a more lenient stance than prosecutors took earlier this month, when they said he deserved prison time.
The latest sentencing filing still seeks a sentence of up six months. But unlike before, prosecutors explicitly state that probation would be a "reasonable" punishment and that they would not oppose it.
It was not clear why the Justice Department appeared to soften its position, though prosecutors did suggest Flynn deserves credit for his decades-long military service. Prosecutors wrote, “There is no dispute that the defendant has an unusually strong record of public service.”
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period, it was determined as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, the Associated Press reports.
