Cohen would have got a longer jail sentence if he didn't confess. Same goes for Flynn. Mueller is recommending NO jail time for Flynn because he has co-operated
the most of any of the alleged crooks. Cohen initially refused to co-operate and then changed his tune when his wife begged him to squeal like a pig.
The irony of it all is this Cohen tweet a few years ago.
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Red and off-topic:
It's highly unlikely that Mueller made the "no-time" recommendation relative to anything other than the standard of cooperation Mueller (or the circuit in which Flynn was charged/convicted) defined.
- A standard of cooperation exists. Flynn met or exceeded it; therefore he's received a very favorable-to-him sentencing recommendation.
- How near or far from meeting/exceeding the extant standard others come (or don't) almost certainly had nothing to do with the recommendation.
There's nothing in the sentencing document Mueller filed that broaches a relativist basis for his sentencing stance. Whether relativist considerations played into his arriving at that stance is unknown. Perhaps Mueller's book -- I'm almost certain he, or some other key player on his team, will write one at some point -- will expound on that notion...
Mueller didn't expressly/literally recommended no jail time; however,
he indicated he'd be quite okay with a sentence of zero days of incarceration.
Given the defendant’s substantial assistance and other considerations set forth below, a sentence at the low end of the guideline range—including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration—is appropriate and warranted.
That's not quite the same thing as recommending/requesting "zero time," but it's as near to such as one can reasonably expect from a prosecutor. It's a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless:
- "We recommend no term of incarceration be assigned" is not what Mueller stated.
- "If, Judge, you're okay with giving Flynn no term of incarceration, we're fine with that too" is what he said.
Flynn's attorneys, however, did, in
Flynn's sentencing memo, introduce something of
a variation on a tu quoque line, a kind of "reverse" tu quoque, as their justification for their request of no jail time. (I suppose seeing as there's no opposing attorney who can object to one's sentencing request, three's nothing to lose by presenting a logically unsound line, and, to get as short a sentence as possible, it's worth trying whatever one can.) Furthermore, for some reason, Flynn's attorneys submitted a sentencing request that didn't simply say, in effect, "we're good with what the government has indicated" is beyond me. Hopefully, for Flynn's sake, the remarks in his sentencing request, namely those that seem to at this late point in the process, reject/contest Flynn's plea and conviction, don't irk the Court.
