Rand Paul calls on Trump to pardon Flynn in wake of unsealed FBI files

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Trump may be moving closer to Flynn pardon after release of new docs in case

The White House is speaking out after new documents reveal the FBI discussed interviewing Michael Flynn to 'get him to lie'; John Roberts reports from the White House.

Sen. Rand Paul, R.-Ky., called on President Trump to pardon former national security adviser Michael Flynn after internal FBI documents released Wednesday showed FBI officials in 2017 discussing if they should try "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."

Flynn later pleaded guilty to giving false statements to the FBI, but has yet to be sentenced. Critics of the FBI's moves argue the new filings show entrapment.

“This is egregious and unacceptable behavior. I believe ⁦@realDonaldTrump should pardon Gen. Flynn,” Paul wrote on Twitter.

Notes handwritten by the FBI's former head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap after a meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in January 2017 show that Priestap questioned if the “goal” in talking with Flynn was to "to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired."

The notes, unsealed by the Justice Department, also suggested agents planned to get Flynn to “admit to breaking the Logan Act,” an obscure statute enacted in 1799 to prevent individuals from claiming to represent the U.S. government abroad.

NOW-IMPERILED CASE AGAINST FLYNN COST HIM MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, HIS HOUSE, HIS JOB

"What is our goal?" one of the notes read. "Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?"

"If we get him to admit to breaking the Logan Act, give facts to DOJ + have them decide," another note read.

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University called the document's implications "chilling."

Flynn resigned from his post shortly after the questioning and later pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI. His sentencing has been postponed indefinitely.

The resignation came as he was accused of misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other senior White House officials about his communications with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

TRUMP BLASTS 'SCAM' AGAINST FLYNN AS FBI FILES RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT FUTURE OF CASE

Flynn’s communications with Kislyak in December 2016 had been picked up in wiretapped discussions, unbeknownst to him. The FBI agents in January 2017 questioned him on the communications and later used his answers to form the basis for the false statement charge and his guilty plea.

Flynn has sought to withdraw his guilty plea and has been seeking exoneration, saying the FBI engaged in "egregious misconduct." Flynn, who has said more recently that he did not lie to the FBI, pleaded guilty in late 2017 as mounting legal fees pushed him to sell his home. Prosecutors have suggested Flynn's guilty plea allowed him to escape liability for a possible charge under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), another little-known and once-rarely used law, for his alleged work in Turkey.

“What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!” Trump tweeted Thursday.

“Does anybody really believe that Roger Stone, a man whose house was raided early in the morning by 29 gun toting FBI agents (with Fake News @CNN closely in toe), was treated fairly . How about the jury forewoman with her unannounced hatred & bias. Same scammers as General Flynn!” the president wrote in a subsequent tweet.

"The president has made clear for three years that Michael Flynn was treated very unfairly, now we know it was probably criminal what was done to him, White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway said Thursday on "Fox & Friends."

"This man was set up from the beginning. He probably thought they were coming in to be helpful since we had only been on the job four days," Conway added.

President Trump announced last month, before the internal documents were released, that he was “strongly considering” pardoning his former national security adviser.

"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. "How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!"

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Trump's claim that the FBI said the "lost" records related to Flynn echoes a motion filed on Flynn's behalf in January that highlighted information that has come to light since Flynn's guilty plea -- including that no precise record of Flynn's statements to agents exists and that the original handwritten FD-302 witness report from the interview is "missing," with subsequent versions later "edited" in some undisclosed manner by anti-Trump FBI officials.

Fox News' Brooke Singman and Gregg Re contributed to this report.