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‘Not Hiding My Disgust’: Judge Rebukes Flynn, Then Delays Sentencing

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Crowd Chants ‘U.S.A.’ as Flynn Exits Courthouse

Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, walked past supporters and protesters as he left a federal court in Washington. A judge postponed Mr. Flynn’s sentencing, warning him that he could face prison time for lying to the F.B.I.

[shouting] Crowd: “U.S.A., U.S.A. U.S.A, U.S.A. U.S.A., U.S.A, U.S.A.” “General, do you have anything to say, sir? General, do you have anything to say, sir?”

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Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, walked past supporters and protesters as he left a federal court in Washington. A judge postponed Mr. Flynn’s sentencing, warning him that he could face prison time for lying to the F.B.I.CreditCredit...Tom Brenner for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — A federal judge transformed a seemingly straightforward sentencing hearing for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser, into a dramatic showdown on Tuesday, expressing “disgust” at Mr. Flynn’s efforts to mislead federal investigators and dismissing suggestions he had been treated unfairly.

In an extraordinary two-hour session in Federal District Court in Washington, the judge, Emmet G. Sullivan, left no doubt that he viewed Mr. Flynn’s crimes as serious enough to warrant prison time despite a recommendation from prosecutors that he receive a lenient sentence.

[Update: Attorney General William Barr installs an outside prosecutor to review the case against Michael Flynn.]

But Judge Sullivan gave Mr. Flynn the option of postponing his sentencing so he had additional time to prove the value of his cooperation with federal prosecutors. Mr. Flynn promptly took up the offer, delaying a decision on his fate at least until March.

The hearing underscored the gravity of the inquiry by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and the enormous consequences for those ensnared in it.

Mr. Flynn, 59, a retired three-star general whose military career spanned 33 years, pleaded guilty a year ago to lying to F.B.I. agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, in the month after Mr. Trump’s election. He also acknowledged that he lied in documents he filed with the Justice Department about his lobbying efforts on behalf of the Turkish government before the election.

“This is a very serious offense,” Judge Sullivan said. “A high-ranking senior official of the government making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while on the physical premises of the White House.”

At one point, Judge Sullivan asked whether Mr. Flynn could have been charged with additional crimes. Later, he even raised and then dropped the prospect of a case for treason.

The judge also walked back another provocative statement he had made, saying he “felt terrible” that he had wrongly accused Mr. Flynn earlier in the proceeding of selling out his country by simultaneously working as a foreign agent for Turkey and Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. Mr. Flynn’s work for Turkey ended before he took up his White House post.

Even though prosecutors had said they would accept a sentence of probation, the judge warned Mr. Flynn that he could not guarantee that outcome. Advisory sentencing guidelines recommend a maximum sentence of six months in prison.

“I can’t make any guarantees, but I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain for this criminal offense,” the judge said.

Before Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Flynn and his lawyer, Robert K. Kelner, had implied in presentencing memos that the F.B.I. agents who had interviewed Mr. Flynn may have tricked him by failing to warn him that lying to investigators was a crime.

In raising the possibility of misconduct by the investigators, Mr. Flynn and his supporters further fueled efforts by Mr. Trump and some of his supporters to undercut the credibility of the special counsel’s investigation.

But under questioning by Judge Sullivan, Mr. Flynn acknowledged that he knew it was a crime to lie to the F.B.I. and he reiterated his guilt.

The presentencing memo from Mr. Flynn’s defense team had noted that F.B.I. agents had deliberately decided not to warn Mr. Flynn that lying to them was a criminal offense when they interviewed him in the West Wing on Jan. 24, 2017, four days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

The agents also told Mr. Flynn that notifying the White House Counsel’s Office would be time-consuming and prompt the Justice Department’s involvement.

That kicked off a public controversy about the F.B.I.’s conduct, with Mr. Trump insisting the law-enforcement authorities had wrongly cornered Mr. Flynn. It also inspired speculation that Mr. Flynn, whose lawyer at one point discussed a possible pardon with a lawyer for Mr. Trump, was inviting the president to spare him punishment.

Before the hearing, Mr. Trump wished Mr. Flynn “good luck,” saying he had been under “tremendous pressure.”

Even after it, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Flynn had been wronged. “What we do know,” she said, “is that the F.B.I. broke standard protocol in a way that they came in and ambushed General Flynn and in the way that they questioned him and in the way that they encouraged him not to have White House Counsel’s Office present.”

But in Judge Sullivan’s fourth-floor courtroom, Mr. Kelner said he was merely trying to show that Mr. Flynn had been held to a higher standard than two other people who had pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators for the special counsel: George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide, and Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who worked with Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman. Both men were warned in advance not to lie to investigators and one brought a lawyer to his F.B.I. interview.

The judge speedily dismissed that comparison, repeatedly noting that Mr. Flynn was a high-ranking government official who had betrayed the government’s trust by lying “in the White House, in the West Wing.”

Although Judge Sullivan has a reputation for being hard on government misconduct, he found no fault with the conduct of the F.B.I. or prosecutors. He said Mr. Flynn deceived not only F.B.I. agents, but also senior White House officials, who then repeated his lies to the American public.

“This is a very serious offense,” he said. “This case is in a category by itself.”

At one point, he asked Brandon L. Van Grack, the lead prosecutor, whether Mr. Flynn was guilty of treason. The question clearly surprised a phalanx of lawyers on Mr. Mueller’s team who were present for the proceedings. Mr. Van Grack at first hesitated to answer, then later said the government had no evidence of treason, and the judge dropped the point.

Some of Judge Sullivan’s sharpest rebukes involved Mr. Flynn’s lies about his lobbying work for the Turkish government. Wrongly asserting that Mr. Flynn continued to work as an unregistered foreign agent during his short tenure as national security adviser, the judge gestured to the American flag at his side and declared: “I mean, arguably, that undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably, you sold your country out.”

For Mr. Flynn, who once led supporters of Mr. Trump’s campaign in chants of “lock her up” against Hillary Clinton, more uncertainty lies ahead. Although prosecutors said they had gleaned almost all they could from him, Mr. Kelner told the judge that Mr. Flynn wanted to postpone his sentencing to put himself in the best position “to eke out the last modicum of cooperation.”

Under his plea deal, Mr. Flynn met with investigators and prosecutors for the special counsel’s office 19 times. In doing so, he became an early cooperator in an investigation that has spun off criminal cases now in the hands of other federal prosecutors.

The special counsel’s office is investigating whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice, including by asking James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, to end the investigation into Mr. Flynn in early 2017. It is unclear whether Mr. Flynn knew about the president’s reported attempt to intervene on his behalf, or whether he has offered any insights on that front.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Mr. Flynn had helped the government secure an indictment in Northern Virginia against two of his former business associates for violating foreign lobbying rules. Prosecutors said the two men conspired with Turkey in 2016 to pressure the United States to expel a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Although he could have faced additional charges in that case that carried up to 15 years in prison, prosecutors said, Mr. Flynn was being treated only as a witness.

How exactly Mr. Flynn’s lies hampered the special counsel’s inquiry into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election remained, for now, unclear. So did the precise reasons he lied.

Judge Sullivan explicitly warned Mr. Flynn that even if he could show further evidence of how much he had helped the special counsel’s office and the Justice Department, he might still sentence him to prison.

As Mr. Flynn left the federal courthouse, he faced a divided and raucous crowd in which some people yelled “U.S.A.” while others chanted “Lock him up.”

Follow Adam Goldman and Sharon LaFraniere on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT and @SharonLNYT.

Noah Weiland contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Flynn Was Looking for Leniency; Judge Gave Him a Stern Rebuke. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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