Former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams said on Wednesday that he was not surprised that a U.S. district court judge allowed Michael Flynn to push back his sentencing until his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller is complete.
“I’ve appeared in front of Judge [Emmet] Sullivan, and that doesn’t shock me,” Williams, who also worked in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“He’s a bit of a wild card, and I think he definitely wants to hold the government to his burden, but just the idea of lying to the government I think he just took very seriously,” he continued.
“I felt for those lawyers yesterday, even in spite of the wrongdoing and lying,” he said. “Because he can really come down on you. As a prosecutor, he was tough to appear in front of.”
Flynn on Tuesday took Sullivan up on an offer to postpone his sentencing for lying to FBI agents about his contacts with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak while serving as national security adviser to President Trump.
The surprise decision from Flynn’s legal team came after Sullivan slammed Flynn for committing a serious offense through lying to the FBI.
“A high-ranking senior official of the government making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation while on the physical premises of the White House,” Sullivan said in federal court in Washington, D.C.
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last year. Mueller recommended a lenient sentence for Flynn, given his cooperation in the Russia probe.
— Julia Manchester
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