WASHINGTON — Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser, is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday for lying to federal investigators about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition.

Mr. Flynn was one of the few defendants whose cooperation with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, paid off with a recommendation for a lighter punishment in a criminal case. He faces up to six months in prison, but federal prosecutors said he deserved little or no prison time because he had provided “substantial help” with multiple criminal inquiries.

He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in federal court in Washington.

Mr. Trump wished his former national security adviser “good luck” in an early morning Twitter post on Tuesday.

Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign. There was no Collusion!

Mr. Flynn will be the highest-ranking aide to Mr. Trump to be sentenced in the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign. His sentencing caps an extraordinary fall from grace for a retired three-star general who once headed one of the nation’s most important military intelligence operations, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Prosecutors have refused to disclose publicly the details of how Mr. Flynn helped them during 19 interviews over the past year, redacting paragraph after paragraph of their sentencing memo to the judge.

The special counsel’s office is investigating whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice, including by asking James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, to end the investigation of Mr. Flynn in early 2017. It is unclear whether Mr. Flynn knew about the president’s reported attempt to intervene on his behalf.

On Monday, federal prosecutors in Virginia unsealed an indictment accusing two of Mr. Flynn’s former business associates of violating foreign lobbying rules. Prosecutors said the two men conspired with Turkey in 2016 to pressure the United States to expel a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. That case may be one in which Mr. Flynn has provided evidence to prosecutors.

In arguing for probation, Mr. Flynn’s lawyers have cited his lengthy military service, his cooperation with prosecutors and his contrition.

But they also criticized F.B.I. agents for failing to advise him before an interview on Jan. 24, 2017, that lying to them would constitute a federal crime. They claimed that the agents deliberately did not warn Mr. Flynn so he would not be on his guard — an accusation that might hold particular weight with Judge Sullivan, who has taken other prosecutors to task for misconduct.

Defense lawyers also raised the idea that Mr. Flynn’s bearing during questioning was potential evidence that he did not lie to investigators. One of the agents who interviewed Mr. Flynn later told the special counsel that Mr. Flynn had a very sure demeanor and did not reveal any “indicators of deception.”

The move by Mr. Flynn’s legal team to raise questions about the F.B.I.’s conduct might have been a play for a pardon from the president, whose former lawyer had discussed the idea last year with a lawyer for Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that Mr. Flynn was treated poorly.

Everyone Who’s Been Charged in Investigations Related to the 2016 Election

Thirty-seven people have been charged in investigations related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Prosecutors dismissed the claims that Mr. Flynn had been tricked as a poor excuse, saying that as a high-ranking White House official and the former director of an intelligence agency, he was well aware that misleading federal authorities was a felony offense.

“The seriousness of the defendant’s offense cannot be called into question, and the court should reject his attempt to minimize it,” prosecutors wrote last week after Mr. Flynn’s legal team made the assertion. In an account of Mr. Flynn’s F.B.I. interview filed in court late Monday, agents described in detail how he falsely answered their questions.

His sentencing comes amid a flurry of activity in criminal cases that have involved the Trump campaign, the White House and the president himself.

Last week, Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime fixer, was sentenced to three years in prison for crimes including organizing hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to cover up potential sex scandals that threatened Mr. Trump’s presidential bid. Prosecutors have said that Mr. Cohen acted at Mr. Trump’s direction, implicating the president in felony violations of campaign finance laws.

Mr. Flynn, who led campaign rallies in chants of “lock her up” against Hillary Clinton, was interviewed by F.B.I. agents only four days after Mr. Trump’s inauguration. He pleaded guilty a year ago to misleading them about a series of discussions he had with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak.

Prosecutors have said that Mr. Flynn’s deceptions impeded the F.B.I.’s open investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow’s covert effort to tip the presidential election in Mr. Trump’s favor. Mr. Trump has said he fired Mr. Flynn because he had also lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Mr. Flynn has now admitted that after the outgoing Obama administration imposed sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 presidential race, he requested that Russia not escalate tensions between the two countries. Mr. Kislyak later told him that Russia had agreed not to retaliate, an unusual decision that Mr. Trump himself praised.

But in his interview with the F.B.I., Mr. Flynn claimed that he did not remember ever asking Mr. Kislyak that Russia hold back, according to the agents. He told them that he did not even know about the Obama administration’s decision to expel dozens of Russian diplomats and to seize two Russian-owned estates because at the time the sanctions were imposed, he was on vacation in the Dominican Republic, without access to television or to his government-issued BlackBerry phone.

Mr. Flynn has also acknowledged he lied to the F.B.I. about his discussions with Mr. Kislyak and officials from other countries about an impending vote on a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The agents stated that Mr. Flynn told them that he asked Mr. Kislyak about Russia’s views but did not advocate Russia take any particular position on the resolution. He “stated the conversations were along the lines of where do you stand, and what’s your position,” the agents wrote.

In fact, Mr. Flynn asked that Russia either delay or oppose the resolution.

Finally, he has admitted lying about his lobbying work for Turkey in documents he filed with the Justice Department after he was forced out as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser amid controversy over his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

He held that post for just 24 days, the shortest tenure ever.

Follow Adam Goldman and Sharon LaFraniere on Twitter: @adamgoldmanNYT and @SharonLNYT.

Source: Read Full Article