WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn was to appear in court on Friday after being charged with lying over his Russian contacts, as part of the FBI’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

Flynn was charged on Thursday with one count of lying about his private discussions with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, regarding US sanctions being imposed on Moscow by the government of then president Barack Obama, a court document showed.

“On or about Jan.24, 2017, defendant Michael T. Flynn did willfully and knowingly make materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements and representations” over a government matter, federal prosecutors said in the two-page charge sheet.

The fourth, and most senior, figure indicted so far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in last year’s election, Flynn was scheduled to appear in court later Friday morning for a plea hearing.

According to an unconfirmed report from NBC, he is planning to plead guilty.

The charges allege that Flynn falsely denied to investigators that, just as the Obama administration was announcing new sanctions and the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election, Flynn privately asked Kislyak to refrain from escalating the situation by retaliating.

Flynn also allegedly lied to investigators about Kislyak’s subsequent answer that Russia would moderate its response, according to the charge document.

At the time Flynn was a campaign advisor with no official US government role, but it was known that he would likely become Trump’s White House national security advisor -- a post he was forced to resign in February, just weeks after the president took office, due to concerns over his contacts with Russia.

Flynn, who once headed the Defense Intelligence Agency, is also accused of lying about secretly asking Kislyak in late December to delay a vote or defeat a pending UN Security Council resolution, according to the charges.

Separately, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s expected exit from the Trump administration is one of many staff changes likely as Trump nears the end of his first year in office, with sources saying top economic adviser Gary Cohn and son-in-law Jared Kushner could be among those who depart.

Cohn, whose relationship with Trump became tense earlier this year, has considered leaving once the Republican effort to overhaul the US tax system is completed in Congress, according to the sources with ties to the White House who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Kushner, who has seen his influence in the White House shrink, may receive a “face-saving” exit as he deals with legal challenges related to a special counsel’s investigation of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign’s potential ties to Russia, one of the sources said.

“This is pure speculation,” said White House spokesman Raj Shah in an emailed statement about potential staff moves.

“It may be February, it may be March, it may be April, but I think once you get to that time period, people are going to feel as though they’ve kind of put their time in,” said one person with close ties to the White House.

“You’re definitely going to see some people leave after tax cuts get done,” said a separate Trump adviser, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the administration.

Agencies