Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office deceived the country and a federal court about former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s late-December 2016 conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Now, more than three years later, Americans are only first learning about that deception thanks to the release of recently declassified transcripts of the calls.

Flynn Didn’t Request Russia Moderate a Sanctions Response

The Statement of Offense likewise wrongly maintained that Flynn had “falsely stated that he did not remember a follow-up conversation in which the Russian Ambassador stated that Russia had chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of FLYNN’S request.”

First, as noted above, Flynn had not requested Russia “moderate its response to those sanctions.”

Second, the declassified transcript of the Dec. 31, 2016 call confirms the Russian ambassador also did not mention sanctions in the follow-up conversation.

Mueller’s Team Lied to the Court and the American People

Not only did the special counsel’s office and then Van Grack, a holdover from the Mueller team, misrepresent to the federal court the substance of Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak, the special counsel repeated these lies to the American public.

For instance, the Mueller report falsely stated, “Flynn discussed multiple topics with Kislyak, including sanctions. … With respect to the sanctions, Flynn requested that Russia not escalate the situation, not get into a ‘tit for tat,’ and only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner.”

The Mueller report also inaccurately reported that “on December 31, 2016, Kislyak called Flynn and told him the request had been received at the highest levels and that Russia had chosen not to retaliate to the sanctions in response to the request.”

Shortly after the FBI questioned Flynn, Flynn publicly refuted media reports that he had discussed sanctions with Russia. I had “a brief discussion of the 35 Russian diplomats who were being expelled by Obama in retaliation for Moscow’s alleged interference in the 2016 campaign. ‘It wasn’t about sanctions. It was about the 35 guys who were thrown out,’” Flynn stated.