The Justice Department on Friday announced that an outside U.S. attorney had been named to reexamine the government’s case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
A senior Justice Department official told Fox News on Friday that Jeff Jensen, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, has been assigned to Flynn’s case, the network .
The official said that Jensen will be working hand-in-hand with the lead prosecutor of Flynn case, Brandon Van Grack.
The announcement comes following a series of twists and turns involving Flynn, who pleaded guilty to one count of lying to FBI agents about his contact with a top Russian diplomat during the transition phase of Trump’s presidency.
Earlier this year, Flynn’s legal team led by Sidney Powell, herself a former U.S. attorney-turned-whistleblower, announced it would seek to have his guilty plea withdrawn, citing new evidence indicating that the Justice Department had reneged on an earlier agreement with Flynn in exchange for his cooperation in other cases.
In a January 29 filing, Powell said in court documents that his first legal team, Covington and Burling, failed to advise him of the firm’s ‘conflict of interest in his case’ regarding the Foreign Agents Registration Act form it filed on his behalf, and as such “betrayed Mr. Flynn,” she said in a defense motion.
The retired three-star’s case is now in its finally sentencing phase. Originally, Flynn was scheduled to be sentenced in a D.C. federal court on January 28, but the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, rescheduled it until February 27.
That change came after Powell filed a motion on behalf of Flynn to withdraw his plea only days after federal prosecutors reversed course and asked for six months in prison. Flynn had been cooperating with federal prosecutors following his guilty plea to the process crime of lying to federal agents, but reportedly refused to go along with prosecutors and “lie” about his former business partner.
On Monday, the federal judge overseeing the Flynn case, Emmet Sullivan, announced he was postponing Flynn’s sentencing indefinitely.