Trump Lawyer Sought ‘Heads Up’ From Flynn, Transcript Shows

(Bloomberg) -- A lawyer for President Donald Trump asked for a “heads up” from former national Security Advisor Michael Flynn's attorney as Flynn was poised to enter a cooperation agreement with prosecutors from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office, according to a transcript of the message made available Friday.

The lawyer, John Dowd, said in a voicemail the warning was necessary for the sake of “protecting all our interests, if we can, without you having to give up any ... confidential information.” Dowd also reminded the general's lawyer of the president's “feelings” toward Flynn and said “that still remains.”

In the transcript, which was peppered with ellipses and incomplete phrases, Dowd raised the prospect of information that might be damaging to the president. He said he understood Flynn couldn't take part in a joint defense agreement.
However, he added, if “there's information that ... implicates the president ... then we've got a national security issues, or maybe a national security issue, I don't know.. some issue, we got to deal with, not only for the president, but for the country."

The message, much of which is included in Mueller's report, is one of the most concrete examples yet of how people close to the president apparently sought to influence those in contact with Mueller.

“This is clearly a baseless, political document designed to smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people,” Dowd said in an emailed statement following the release of the transcript. Mueller's report reflects no conflict of interest between Trump's lawyers and Flynn in the matter, he said.

The transcript emerges just days after Mueller brought obstruction of justice allegations to center stage, in his first public comments since his appointment more than two years ago. Stopping well short of exonerating the president for obstruction of justice, the special counsel suggested that Congress was empowered to take further steps using the evidence his investigators had gathered.

A growing number of Democratic lawmakers are calling for impeachment proceedings against Trump.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered prosecutors earlier this month to make public a transcript of the voice recording, as well as transcripts of other recordings of Flynn, including conversations he had with Russian officials. Sullivan also asked prosecutors to provide portions the Mueller report that relate to Flynn -- in full, without Justice Department redactions.

Prosecutors didn't provide any unredacted portions of the report, saying there were none that were relevant to the judge's order.

They also said they aren't releasing any other transcripts. They said they didn't rely on any other recordings to establish Flynn's guilt.

Flynn is awaiting sentencing in Sullivan's court after pleading guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

Dowd, in his statement, said Attorney General William Barr and his deputy determined that the report identified no actions that constituted obstruction of justice.

Mueller, in his report, laid out 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump -- including several that former prosecutors have said satisfy all of the elements of obstruction under federal law. In his public remarks earlier this week, Mueller said he had adhered to a Justice Department policy against charging a sitting president with a federal crime.

“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so," Mueller said.

The case is U.S. v. Flynn, 17-cr-232, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington). bbls dd X1Q6NU634M82

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Farrell in New York at gregfarrell@bloomberg.net;Andrew Harris in Washington at aharris16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Jeffrey D Grocott, Joe Schneider

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