Attorney General William Barr ordered reviews of several politically sensitive criminal cases, including the prosecution of President Trump’s ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, multiple reports said Friday.
US Attorney Jeffrey Jensen of St. Louis, a Trump appointee, was directed to take another look at the Flynn and other sensitive cases, officials told CNN, though it was unclear what other cases were involved.
The news, first reported by The New York Times, came as Barr and his Justice Department have come under scrutiny for overruling prosecutors in the case of Roger Stone who had asked for a 7 to 9 year sentence for Trump’s longtime associate.
Justice, instead, asked for a softer sentence for Stone, who was convicted in November of lying to Congress and other crimes and will be sentenced Feb. 20 by Judge Amy Jackson Berman in federal court in DC.
Trump had also slammed the initial recommendation, claiming that Stone had been treated unfairly, though Barr on Thursday denied that Trump’s protests had anything to do with his decision.
The president tweeted Friday that he had “the legal right” to intervene in federal prosecutions but asserted that he had not done so.
Barr’s move prompted the four federal prosecutors who had handled the case to quit in protest.
CNN reported Wednesday that Barr had also been lobbying for a sentence for Flynn that would keep him out of prison.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, pleaded guilty in 2017 to charges that he lied to the FBI about a conversation he had with the then-ambassador to Russia about US sanctions.
Flynn recently changed lawyers and called himself as a victim of malicious prosecutors, and he’s trying to withdraw his guilty plea.
Federal prosecutors are fighting Flynn’s effort to change his plea.
Jensen, a former FBI agent who served as a federal prosecutor in the St. Louis office, was nominated by Trump in 2017 and was confirmed later that year by the GOP-led Senate.