Ex-DOJ Official: Barr Twisted My Words to Help Dismiss Flynn Case

Mary McCord, former acting assistant attorney general for national security, has accused Attorney General Bill Barr of twisting her words to help dismiss the case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In a skewering op-ed for The New York Times, McCord takes issue with her repeated namecheck in the Justice Department's motion to dismiss the criminal charges against Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. The filing partially relies on McCord’s July 2017 interview with the FBI to argue that the FBI had no valid counterintelligence reason to interview Flynn, so his apparent lies were not “material” to any matter under investigation. The motion concludes that the interview shouldn’t have taken place, but McCord argues: “The account of my interview in 2017 doesn’t help the department support this conclusion, and it is disingenuous for the department to twist my words to suggest that it does.”