After federal prosecutors decline to release Flynn transcripts, judge decides he won't force issue
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn/Photo from Shutterstock.com.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has decided that prosecutors don’t have to release transcripts of recorded conversations between former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, despite his earlier order to the contrary.
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said in notices posted Tuesday that the government didn’t have to release any additional materials, report the New York Times, the Washington Post, the National Law Journal and Politico.
Sullivan had imposed a May 31 deadline for the government to release the transcripts of the December 2016 audio recordings. But the government did not comply with the order, saying it did not rely on any such recordings to establish Flynn’s guilt or to determine his sentence.
The government has not confirmed publicly that the classified recordings exist, according to the Washington Post. The recordings are from FBI wiretaps and would have confirmed that conversations of Russian diplomats in the United States are being recorded, the New York Times reports.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI in the Russia probe about his interactions with the ambassador. Flynn has not yet been sentenced.
