Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Sunday that he was “strongly considering” a full pardon for former top aide Michael Flynn, reviving an old controversy even as the country struggled to cope with the coronavirus pandemic.
That announcement came amid a flurry of tweets both defending the president’s handling of the pandemic and attacking political foes past and present.
“So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has lost the records of General Michael Flynn,” Trump tweeted, citing an unspecified report.
“How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!”
Flynn, a retired US Army general, was Trump’s first national security advisor before being removed from office, after only 22 days, over his contacts with Russians. He eventually pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
Later, Flynn attempted to withdraw that plea, saying prosecutors had violated a plea agreement, but a judge rejected the request; Flynn’s sentencing has been postponed.
Trump’s flurry of tweets Sunday stood in jarring contrast to his more conciliatory comments a day earlier, when he praised some Democrats for their work on the coronavirus pandemic and even had praise for a favorite target, the news media.
After noting early Sunday that it was “A NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER,” the president suggested that as vice president Joe Biden bore some responsibility for the loss of 17,000 lives to the swine flu (“very late response time”); called Democratic Senator Charles Schumer “pathetic” over his comments about the Supreme Court; and targeted Hillary Clinton over her handling of emails and the Benghazi crisis.