Professor James Cohen was quoted in the Los Angeles Times on Michael Flynn’s appeal to have his guilty plea thrown out for lying to the FBI in the Russia investigation.
Michael Flynn, President Trump’s first national security advisor, is seeking to have his guilty plea thrown out for lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation — a risky legal strategy that could irritate the federal judge who will sentence him next month.
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Legal experts said it is clear from court filings that the real audience for Flynn’s moves is not Sullivan, a no-nonsense judge who has little patience for defendants seeking to duck responsibility for their crimes. It is the president who named Flynn national security advisor after the 2016 election — and then sacked him after less than a month on the job.
“Flynn is playing to Trump,” said James Cohen, a law professor at Fordham University in New York. “You don’t evaluate these arguments based on them making sense. You evaluate them on the basis of whom they are making happy. That would be Trump. Flynn wants a pardon.”
