BREAKING: Criminal case against Michael Flynn dropped by US Justice Department

The Justice Department said it is dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, abandoning a prosecution that had become a rallying cry for Trump and his supporters in attacking the FBI’s Russia investigation.

The move is a stunning reversal for one of the prominent cases brought on by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes after prosecutors had maintained Flynn had lied to the FBI for the past three years about his conversations with the Russia ambassador in a January 2017 interview.

Flynn himself admitted as much, and had become a key cooperator for Mueller as he investigated ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

According to court documents filed Thursday, the Justice Department said it is now dropping the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.”

The Justice Department said it concluded that Flynn's interview by the FBI was "untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn" and that the interview that took place on January 24, 2017 was "conducted without any legitimate investigative basis."

The US attorney who reviewed the Flynn case, Jeff Jensen, recommended the move to Attorney General William Barr last week and formalized the recommendation in a document this week.

“Through the course of my review of General Flynn’s case, I concluded the proper and just course was to dismiss the case,” Jensen said in a statement. “I briefed Attorney General Barr on my findings, advised him on these conclusions, and he agreed.”