WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Wednesday delayed the planned Dec. 18 sentencing hearing of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, but did not set a new date.
Judge Emmett Sullivan had been expected to put off sentencing after both Flynn, who has pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents, and the United States filed a joint motion to request the delay, citing the expected December release of the Justice Department inspector general's report on the origins of investigations into alleged Russian election interference. The inspector general said last week he expects to release the report on Dec. 9.
"The parties expect that the report of this investigation will examine topics related to several matters raised by the defendant," they wrote in the joint filing.
Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to agents about his 2016 conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then-Russian ambassador to the United States. The retired Army lieutenant general is one of several Trump aides to plead guilty or be convicted at trial in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by David Gregorio and Jonathan Oatis)