A federal judge in D.C. on Monday indefinitely postponed former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing on charges he lied to the FBI, reports Politico.
U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan announced that he was canceling the hearing “until further order of the court,” as a dispute between Flynn and his original team of lawyers escalates.
Flynn’s hearing has been called off or delayed four times.
The delay stems from Flynn’s decision in January to withdraw his guilty plea. The three-star Army general claimed that prosecutors and his former legal team had pressured him into accepting a plea agreement.
“In truth, I never lied,” Flynn said in the filing on Jan. 29.
"My guilty plea has rankled me throughout this process, and while I allowed myself to succumb to the threats from the government to save my family, I believe that I was grossly misled about what really happened," Flynn wrote.
Sullivan on Monday instructed Flynn’s former attorneys at the law firm of Covington & Burling and his current legal team to discuss the terms of Flynn’s waiver of attorney-client privilege so his former lawyers could share information with prosecutors.
Flynn in May 2019 fired the Covington lawyers and hired a team led by Sidney Powell.
The government on Sunday said that it was seeking to “obtain from these counsel (and any other person acting on the defendant’s behalf in this case) and provide to the Court documents, declarations, or affidavits responding to the claims of ineffective assistance in the defendant’s Supplemental Motion to Withdraw his Plea of Guilty.”