WASHINGTON (CN) – Federal prosecutors released the full transcript Friday of a voicemail from President Donald Trump’s personal attorney which former national security adviser Michael Flynn said was meant to keep him from cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
In memos Mueller unsealed this month, Mueller revealed Trump officials did indeed try to influence Flynn in the lead-up to his guilty plea.
“The defendant informed the government of multiple instances, both before and after his guilty plea, where either he or his attorneys received communications from persons connected to the administration or Congress that could’ve affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation,” Mueller wrote.
Following this confirmation, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the public release of the transcript, along with any other audio recording of Flynn’s conversations with Russian officials. Amounting to just one page, the transcript released Friday was the only document filed by the prosecutors in response to the order.
The call, made on Nov. 22, 2017, to Flynn’s attorney Robert Kelner in the early stages of Flynn’s cooperation with the investigation, was excerpted in the Mueller report but with heavy use of ellipses.
In the full version, Trump’s person attorney John Dowd advises Flynn against giving information to the Mueller team’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Dowd casually refers to Flynn's attorney as “Rob” and closes out the call with “Thanks, pal.”
“If, on the other hand, we have, there’s information that...implicates the president, then we’ve got a national security issue.”
FBI investigators first came to the White House in January 2017 to interview Flynn, according to the memos unsealed by Mueller. At this time, Flynn acknowledged trying to “build relationships” with the Russians.
“Flynn was unguarded and clearly saw the FBI agents as allies,” a redacted summary of the interview said.
But on the call made two months earlier, Dowd asked Flynn to remember the president’s feelings towards him.
“We need some kind of heads up. Um, just for the sake of...protecting all our interests, if we can, without you having to give up any...confidential information,” Dowd said in the voicemail.
He also said he was “sympathetic” to Flynn’s situation and that he wouldn’t be surprised if Flynn had made a deal with the Justice Department.
Flynn later pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign.
As Dowd foretold in the voicemail, Mueller recommended Flynn receive minimal jail time in exchange for his cooperation.
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