Michael Flynn Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, center, arrives for sentencing at federal court in Washington, with his then-attorney Robert Kelner, right. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ

A federal judge on Monday rejected former national security adviser Michael Flynn's broad attack against the U.S. Justice Department and FBI, setting a sentencing hearing for Jan. 28 after concluding prosecutors were not hiding evidence and that the former Trump administration aide had not been pressured to plead guilty.

In a 92-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District of Columbia found there was no basis for Flynn's attacks on federal prosecutors, which included claims the Justice Department withheld favorable evidence from him. Flynn also alleged the FBI entrapped him in an interview that addressed his contacts with Russia's top diplomat to the U.S. during the presidential transition.

Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to federal investigators about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, the former Russian ambassador to the United States. His new sentencing date is the third has received since admitting to that charge.

"The court summarily disposes of Mr. Flynn's arguments that the FBI conducted an ambush interview for the purpose of trapping him into making false statements and that the government pressured him to enter a guilty plea," Sullivan wrote in Monday's ruling. "The record proves otherwise."

In December 2018, his initial sentencing hearing was derailed when Sullivan suggested he was considering sentencing Flynn to a prison term. Federal trial judges have broad discretion to order prison terms even in scenarios where prosecutors might back probation.

Flynn, represented at the time by a defense team from Covington & Burling, asked to delay the sentencing so that he could continue cooperating with federal prosecutors. But in the ensuing months, Flynn turned against prosecutors, dropping his Covington defense team to hire Sidney Powell, a vocal critic of the special counsel office investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Powell accused the Justice Department of misconduct in a push not to withdraw Flynn's guilty plea but to knock out the case entirely. She argued the government had violated obligations to disclose evidence benefiting Flynn.

In his ruling Monday, Sullivan delivered a firm repudiation of those claims.

"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty to making materially false statements to the FBI," Sullivan said in Monday's ruling. "And it is undisputed that Mr. Flynn not only made those false statements to the FBI agents, but he also made the same false statements to the Vice President and senior White House officials, who, in turn, repeated Mr. Flynn's false statements to the American people on national television."

A second sentencing hearing had been set for Dec. 18, on the one-year anniversary of his initial sentencing date. But that hearing was canceled ahead of the release of the Justice Department inspector general's long awaited report on the roots of the Russia investigation.

The Justice Department's watchdog found that the department was justified in opening an investigation into possible coordination between Russia and associates of the Trump campaign, including Flynn. The inspector general also found there was no evidence that anti-Trump bias played into the opening of the probe.

But the report also documented significant missteps by the FBI in its pursuit of warrants to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

 

Judge Sullivan's ruling in United States v. Flynn is posted below:

 

Read more:

'Divorced From Facts': Prosecutors Condemn Michael Flynn's 'Conspiracy Theories'

Michael Flynn's Sentencing Judge Is Ready to Roll, Spurns Defense Play for Delay

Flynn's Ex-Covington Lawyers Defend Conduct Amid Court Scrutiny

Judge Sullivan Has Read Some of Sidney Powell's Book (Or at Least the Part About Him)

Michael Flynn Hires Mueller-Critic Sidney Powell After Dumping Covington Team

Michael Flynn Fires Covington Team as Sentencing Looms