Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack on Thursday submitted a request to withdraw from the team prosecuting former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Lawyers for Flynn on April 24 claimed that Van Grack had made a “side deal” with Flynn’s former defense team not to prosecute Flynn’s son in order to pressure Flynn into pleading guilty to lying to FBI investigators.
Van Grack’s request comes after Flynn, who initially pleaded guilty in 2017, attempted to rescind his plea in January. Notes from FBI agents released by the Justice Department in late April showed one agent questioning whether the purpose of interviews with Flynn was “to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired.”
House Judiciary Committee Republicans on Tuesday demanded that FBI Director Christopher Wray make top officials connected with the Flynn case available to questioning by lawmakers.
“The American people continue to learn troubling details about the politicization and misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI during the Obama-Biden Administration,” Representatives Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R., La.) wrote in a joint letter. “Even more concerning, we continue to learn these new details from litigation and investigations — not from you. It is well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era.
Flynn was originally prosecuted over conversations with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, with the FBI claiming the adviser potentially violated the Logan Act of 1799, a law that has never been used to convict someone.
More from National Review
