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I think the White House is preparing to pardon Flynn. This will send a message to others that pardons will be given if you're not "a rat" like Cohen.
This is a sinking ship we're watching.
I think the White House is preparing to pardon Flynn. This will send a message to others that pardons will be given if you're not "a rat" like Cohen.
This is a sinking ship we're watching.
I actually think Flynn has flipped. But we are not going to know what Mueller knows until he can connect all the links on both ends of the chain, from Russian Hacking, the email scandal and Interference through Trump and Flynn business dealings and the outreach regarding Sanctions. But Mueller is close. Once he ties in Roger Stone and Assange he is basically there.
"We do not yet know everything about Flynn's cooperation," Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, told INSIDER in an interview. "The heavy redactions in the filing hide nearly all the details that Mueller provided to the court."
Jens David Ohlin, a vice dean at Cornell Law School who's an expert on criminal law, echoed that view.
I think the White House is preparing to pardon Flynn. This will send a message to others that pardons will be given if you're not "a rat" like Cohen.
This is a sinking ship we're watching.
I suspect that the judge knows more than we know. He read all the redacted bits. I find it interesting that he said Flynn "sold out" his country and he brought up treason.
This makes me suspect that Flynn was involved in something more serious.
https://www.businessinsider.com/michael-flynn-sentenced-mueller-russia-probe-2018-12
Remember the judge was disgusted by what he read.
IDK. Mueller seems concerned about Flynn's status and the judge may want him to serve jail time. I think the authorities are watching what Trump does. If Trump decides to pardon Flynn while another investigation begins. What would happen then? Just because this case has ended doesn't mean that they can't charge Flynn with more crimes. Like you said, the judge already raised the question of charging Flynn with treason. He already admitted to lying. The WH is still pushing the same entrapment narrative. But Papa George is back under investigation and they'll have some questions for his wife too.
Can Trump pardon Flynn but then Flynn gets charged with treason??? I think Mueller designed this so that Trump pardons will be worthless.
I'm not worried about any Trump pardons, except what Pence might do.
Red:
I've said this elsewhere on DP...
I think Mueller sees his charge less as one aimed at putting folks in jail and more one of getting clarity on the nature and extent to which Russia has infiltrated US democratic processes and institutions, and, in turn, getting Russia (and its agents and sympathisers) out of any such "locales" in which it's insinuated itself. I think Mueller is willing to be fairly lenient if exists good reason for him to think an otherwise patriotic, honest and law abiding US citizen of integrity was duped or co-opted into abetting Russia's, Putin's, subversive ends.
I think Mueller is concerned with and will absolutely incarcerate dissemblers whose actions augured to undermine US institutions and democracy, but "petty" criminals, which about what Cohen, for instance, seems to be, don't appear to concern him. That's, IMO, as it should be for Russian infiltration and duplicitous manipulation of our largely naive polity is far and away the bigger problem.
In all that, Trump is, as usual, sui generis in that he appears to have willfully opeted to suborn the very sovereignty/integrity of US democratic institutions to his own personal and pecuniary ends, exacerbating that by lying and resisting every entreaty to get from him the existential truth of the nature of his interactions with the very Russians who seek to undermine our and every other democracy in the Western world. Would Mueller see Trump sent to prison? I think so. I think Mueller'd "throw the book at him."
Red:
That was salient to me too. Sullivan isn't a magician, literally or figuratively, and he's not a partisan. That remark came from something he read in a court filing. Maybe it came from the fact of the indictment of Flynn's "Turkey" associates? Maybe it came from the heavily redacted sections of Flynn's sentencing documents? I don't know, but I find it hard to believe Emm hatched it himself.
Another thing to know about Sullivan is that his is not a courtroom into which one wants to find oneself if one hasn't "dotted one's ies and crossed one's tees," especially if one is arguing on behalf of The People. It's good that Mueller is the counselor leading the "Russia" investigation; he's an i-dotter and tee-croser nonpareil.
That Flynn' sentencing was set prior to his completing his cooperation was, on its own, irregular.I think both the Defense and the Prosecution would have faired much better today if Flynn's Defense team had not come up with that goofy "I got framed" memo. That was beyond stupid and really opened the door for Sullivan to question the voracity of Flynn's Plea. When a Judge does that, it reflects on both the Defendant and the Prosecution as in "what the heck are all of you guys doing".
Mueller got tripped up on the timing of events and Flynn's team just got dynamited clear into outer space.
Mueller had the Eastern Dist Virginia criminal charges filed just before this sentencing date. Makes sense because Mueller was trying to fill in more blanks for Sullivan with regard to Flynn's cooperation. Now normally the sentencing Judge would not be compelled into a circumstance where he would have to go through those charges with a fine tooth comb. He would just say "OK, I get it...Flynn is helping you in this Turkey matter as well. You have got these two guys nailed to the wall and you have them nailed to the wall because of Flynn's cooperation. Got it."
...
You could tell that the two things that most bothered Sullivan were:
1) The "I got set up" Flynn position because it literally brought into question Flynn's actual plea!
2) The actual offense of having lied to the FBI from an office in the WH
That got Sullivan so fired up that he misread the Charges in the Eastern Dist case.
Finally, Sullivan does not think Flynn should be before him for sentencing before the Eastern Dist case "and other matters" were completed. That is a valid concern but speaks to how quickly Mueller is trying to move.
The downstream issues that spring from today are Roger Stone and Corsi who are next in line for "there time in the barrel" to turn a Roger Stone phrase back on him. Can Mueller convince them that he can get a Judge to Probation only, no jail time in light of what just happened today.
I do have to admit though that if there is anything left that Flynn has left out, its probably going to come Mueller's way now thanks in large part to Sullivan.
The biggest Flynn question is why did he lie about his communications with Kislyak. There is something way more sinister behind that and its sits right at the intersection of the Russian Interference, Trump Campaign willingness to deal for Clinton dirt, the Trump/Flynn business deals in and around Russia and Saudi, and Sanctions Relief. I very much suspect that Mueller already knows why Flynn lied about it. We won't know till we are much closer to the end of this thing.
Maybe I'm overly sensitive to potentially-espionage-related "stuff," but I cannot overlook the fact of the national intelligence role Flynn played. I think Mueller wants Flynn's visibility greatly reduced so Flynn can be more ably used to abet that aspect of the Russia investigation. Obviously, however, Em seems, based on his 50-mile radius and passport seizure orders, to be of a different mind. Feint? I don't know. I just know there's a whole lotta strangeness going on with the Flynn part of the investigation.
I'm sorry, but I'm incredulous that "substantial cooperation," no matter how substantial, is enough to warrant a prosecutor essentially saying "charge him as you see fit, but no incarceration is fine with us" and not charging him for being a spy.
- KT McFarland was party to the same Russia and Turkey stuff Flynn was, yet she, apparently, hasn't been charged.
- Flynn was a spy while serving as the "NSA elect" and receiving classified briefings as of Sept. 2017, yet the DoJ apparently has taken a "meh" attitude toward his being so, even as they had him "dead to rights" as a foreign agent, aiding and abetting a despot, no less.
- We still don't know why he lied about communications we know he he knew had been monitored and recorded.
....
Mueller has been happy to this point to have a good deal of attention go to the Trump Tower meeting and it is important in the sense that one way to really tie Trump in knots is through the indiscretions of Don Jr, Ivanka and Kushner. I just don't think its the centerpiece of the case. I always thought that the Flynn lies sit right at the nexus of the case.
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