Obama blasts decision to drop charges against Michael Flynn

Former President Barack Obama took a jab at the Justice Department in a private phone call with his former campaign workers, blasting prosecutors for dropping their case against ex-Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Flynn, who joined the White House in early 2017, had pleaded guilty twice to making false statements to FBI agents about his dealings with a Russian diplomat in late 2016.

“And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk,” Obama told the Obama Alumni Association on Friday. “And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

Obama misstated the charge against Flynn in the phone call, according to a recording obtained by Yahoo News.

The former president used the Flynn case to put for the election of Joe Biden, his vice president and the presumptive Democratic nominee.

On Thursday the Justice Department moved to drop its case against Flynn, who had been indicted as part of the long series of investigations into 2016 election interference by Russia. Attorney General William Barr said the evidence of an underlying crime had been insufficient.

“Well, you know, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes,” Barr told CBS. “And the Department of Justice is not persuaded that this was material to any legitimate counterintelligence investigation. So, it was not a crime.”

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