WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Monday his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was being treated unfairly, implicitly criticizing the US special counsel’s charges against him even though Flynn pleaded guilty.

“I feel badly for General Flynn,” Trump told reporters at the White House, and went on to accuse his Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton, of having lied last year.

“He’s led a very strong life, and I feel badly about it.”

“I will say this − Hillary Clinton lied many times to the FBI. Nothing. Flynn lied, and they destroyed his life. I think it’s a shame,” Trump said before heading off on a trip to Utah.

“Hillary Clinton on the 4th of July weekend went to the FBI Not under oath. It was the most incredible thing anyone’s ever seen,” Trump said.

Flynn, a retired Army general who was a senior adviser in Trump’s election campaign, pleaded guilty on Friday to having lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. He was charged as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election and possible collusion by Trump campaign aides.

Trump did not provide evidence or detail about his accusation against Clinton. Clinton answered questions in July 2016 about her use of a private server for government emails while she was secretary of state.

There was never any indication from the FBI that Clinton did not tell the truth.

The Kremlin said on Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin had taken a decision to hold off responding to new US sanctions last year independently and had not been influenced by Flynn.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors delving into the actions of President Donald Trump’s inner circle before he took office.

US prosecutors said Flynn and Sergei Kislyak, then Russian ambassador to the US, last December discussed economic sanctions that the Obama administration had just imposed on Moscow for allegedly interfering in the US presidential election, something Moscow denies.

Obama at the time expelled 35 Russian diplomats and the US authorities seized two Russian diplomatic compounds in the United States.

But Putin said he would wait to see how relations developed with the new Trump administration before responding. Russia only went ahead and took retaliatory measures this summer.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had taken the decision to hold off retaliating independently and had not known of Flynn’s alleged request to Russia to refrain from an immediate response.

Flynn was not in a position to ask Kislyak, the then Russian Ambassador to the US, to do anything, said Peskov, calling the idea “absurd.”

“Of course Putin took the decision, it was his decision,” Peskov told a conference call with reporters.

“It (the decision) could not have been connected to any requests or recommendations. The president takes his decisions absolutely independently.”

A series of tweets by Trump about the investigation into contacts between his 2016 campaign and Russia prompted concerns on Sunday among both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham saying Trump could be wading into “peril” by commenting on the probe.

“I would just say this with the president: There’s an ongoing criminal investigation,” Graham said on the CBS programme “Face the Nation.” “You tweet and comment regarding ongoing criminal investigations at your own peril,” he added. On Sunday morning, Trump wrote on Twitter that he never asked former FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating Michael Flynn — a statement at odds with an account Comey himself has given.

That tweet followed one on Saturday in which Trump said: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President (Mike Pence) and the FBI.” Legal experts and some Democratic lawmakers said if Trump knew Flynn lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and then pressured Comey not to investigate him, that could bolster a charge of obstruction of justice.

Trump’s attorney, John Dowd, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday that he had drafted the Saturday tweet and made “a mistake” when he composed it.

“The mistake was I should have put the lying to the FBI in a separate line referencing his plea,” Dowd said.

Agencies