Michael Flynn Fires His Legal Team

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has dismissed the legal team that represented him in his dealings with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe and retained new counsel, according to a court filing on Thursday.

The move to dismiss lawyers Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony of Covington & Burling LLP comes ahead of Flynn's sentencing, which was postponed in December after the judge in the case criticized a memo filed by his lawyers to the court.

In Thursday's filing Kelner and Anthony motioned to withdraw as Flynn's lawyers, noting that they did not see any reason why new counsel could not handle Flynn's representation.

"As only sentencing remains in this case, sentencing has not yet been scheduled, and General Flynn has already retained new counsel, withdrawal at this time would not be prejudicial to any of the parties or otherwise inconsistent with the interests of justice," Kelner and Anthony wrote.

Kelner declined to comment further.

Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his December 2016 conversations with Sergei Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador in Washington, about U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow by the administration of President Donald Trump's Democratic predecessor Barack Obama. The conversations took place between Trump's November 2016 election victory and his inauguration in January 2017.

Flynn cooperated extensively with Mueller's investigation, which did not find sufficient evidence to establish a criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign but documented multiple instances of attempts by Trump to impede the probe while stopping short of saying whether he committed a crime.

At a hearing in December U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan excoriated Flynn for his actions and recommended sentencing be put off until after he has finished helping prosecutors with other investigations and could get full credit for it.

Flynn is still cooperating with prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia against his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, who was indicted on allegations of unregistered lobbying on behalf of Turkey. Rafiekian has pleaded not guilty and will take his case to trial scheduled to begin in July.