Attorney General William Barr has installed an outside prosecutor to conduct a review of the criminal case against former Trump adviser Michael Flynn, the New York Times reported on Friday.
In addition, Barr has appointed prosecutors to review a number of other politically sensitive cases, none of which were named by the Times. These prosecutors have been interviewing line prosecutors on investigative decisions and the reasons behind them.
A prosecutor from the office of the U.S. attorney in St. Louis, Mo. is handling the Flynn case, while prosecutors from the office of Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen are taking up other cases.
Flynn, who was convicted of lying to investigators as part of the Mueller probe, has in recent months attempted to withdraw his original guilty plea. In December Judge Emmett Sullivan rejected Flynn’s attempts, although the former adviser has continued to proclaim his innocence.
“The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty to making materially false statements to the FBI,” Sullivan wrote in a 93-page decision regarding Flynn’s plea.
Meanwhile, the four Justice Department line prosecutors working the case against Trump ally Roger Stone all resigned from the case on Tuesday after Attorney General Barr intervened to relax the recommended sentence against Stone.
Barr on Thursday denied that President Trump had pressured him to change the sentencing, but criticized Trump’s public pronouncements on the Stone case.
“I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me,” Barr said.