A court filing against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman could indicate what charges await former national security adviser Mike Flynn, Politico reports.
Special counsel Robert Mueller has charged Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates with multiple crimes, one of which is violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA. Only seven FARA violations have been prosecuted in the last 50 years, according to a Justice Department report from 2016.
"While criminal charges under FARA are not often brought," the prosecutors wrote in their filing, "the facts set forth in the indictment indicate the gravity of the violation at issue based on the dollar volume of earning from the violation, its longevity, its maintenance through creation of a sham entity designed to evade FARA's requirements, and its continuation through lies to the FARA unit."
Former federal prosecutor Jeff Cramer told Politico that "it's odd language to have in there. This language could be a precursor to explain any future FARA violation charge, especially Flynn. If Flynn didn't exist, you wouldn't need that language in there . . . You wouldn't have to go through a lot of the machinations."
Flynn registered as a commercial lobbyist for the Dutch firm Inovo BV in September of last year, but last March his attorney filed paperwork with the DOJ that said the work done by Flynn Intelligence Group for Inovo could be "construed" as primarily assisting Turkey, which was not previously disclosed.
However, attorneys told Politico that if Mueller does move to charge Flynn with a crime, it likely will be a more serious one that failing to register as a lobbyist for Turkey.
"It sounds to me, if they really think they have a strong case, it will be on some other charges and they'll tack on a FARA charge," said Jan Baran of Wiley Rein LLP.
"There are questions about Flynn's security clearance and his financial disclosures. … He may have lied to FBI agents before he even hired a law firm. Those are major potential exposures. Lying is just a lot easier to prove than any of these esoteric laws like FARA or lobbying."
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