“After announcing that the Justice Department was dropping the criminal case against Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, Attorney General William P. Barr was presented with a crucial question: Was Mr. Flynn guilty of lying to the F.B.I. about the nature of phone calls he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States?
After all, Mr. Flynn had twice pleaded guilty to lying about them.
“Well, you know, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes,” Mr. Barr said in an interview with CBS News. Then he went even further and described the infamous calls during the Trump presidential transition as “laudable.”
Mr. Trump and his allies now accuse the F.B.I. of framing Mr. Flynn, which is part of the president’s broader campaign to tarnish the Russia investigation and settle scores against perceived enemies ahead of the November election.
Their revisionist narrative is in stark contrast to the view held three years ago not only by top F.B.I. management but also by senior White House officials. Mr. Flynn, the officials said then, had lied to Vice President Mike Pence and other aides about the nature of his calls to the ambassador, had lied repeatedly to F.B.I. agents about the calls, and might have made himself vulnerable to Russian blackmail.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/us/politics/trump-michael-flynn.html