5/7/20
Michael Flynn was an early, instinctive Trumpist. The retired general was an enthusiastic backer of Donald Trump’s candidacy, leading chants of “Lock her up!” at the 2016 Republican National Convention. And his less public work bore the hallmarks of Trumpism too: brazen lying, shameless profiteering, conspiracy-mongering, and bigoted tweeting. Nonetheless, Flynn didn’t immediately grasp how much the rules of the game changed when Trump won the 2016 election. When Flynn, the newly minted national security adviser, got in trouble with the law, he quickly took up the standard playbook of white-collar criminals in pre-Trump America. When the FBI caught him lying, Flynn copped a plea and agreed to cooperate with the government in exchange for a lesser sentence. Only after that December 2017 plea deal did Flynn grasp the new reality: Cooperating with authorities might get you off easy, but staying loyal to the president will get you off entirely. So even though he’d already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, Flynn changed his mind, tried to withdraw his plea, and began fighting the prosecutors he’d promised to help tooth and nail. The reversal, from confessed felon to scot-free, is a microcosm of how dramatically the rule of law has weakened during the Trump administration.
Flynn was fired from the White House in February 2017, just days into his tenure as national security adviser. But Flynn lied about conversations with Russians to FBI agents. He also lied about them to Vice President Mike Pence, which was the reason given for his dismissal. Flynn had a host of other problems too. He had lied repeatedly about taking money from the Turkish government for lobbying, failing to file required documents. He appeared to have lied about who paid for a 2015 trip to Russia, where he sat with Vladimir Putin. Flynn’s defenders argued that the FBI was out to get him, and if the FBI is out to get you, it will find a way. But there’s a corollary: If Attorney General William Barr’s Justice Department wants to let you off, it will find a way too. If there is any doubt about the White House’s role, the president telegraphed the outcome of this case on April 30, when he was asked whether he’d pardon Flynn. Trump said he didn’t think he’d have to. “Well, it looks to me like Michael Flynn would be exonerated based on everything I see,” he said. “Look, I’m not the judge, but I have a different type of power. But I don’t know that anybody would have to use that power.” This wasn’t just good guessing—it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Trump-Barr Justice Department appears to have different standards based on one’s political allegiance.[/iCOLOR]