Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Has Mike Flynn Already Flipped on Trump?


As noted in previous posts, speculation as to whether or not former Trump BFF Michael Flynn will go "states evidence" and cooperate with Robert Mueller in order to save his own (and his son's as well) is already rampant.  Of course, if Flynn flips and testifies against Trump, Pence and/or their minions, the consequences to Der  Trumpenführer and his toxic regime could be catastrophic (something I hope comes to pass).  A column by former conservative writer Jennifer Rubin looks at a list of who Flynn might well take down and help to convict.  The piece is worth a read.  Another piece in Vanity Fair looks at the possibility that Flynn has indeed already flipped.  Here are article excerpts:
The conspicuous lack of charges against Michael Flynn and Michael G. Flynn, despite reports that Robert Mueller already has enough evidence to arrest the former national security adviser and his son, invites the obvious question: has the elder Flynn already turned state’s witness? The tantalizing possibility that Flynn, like George Papadopoulos, has flipped, gained new currency last week when The New York Times reported that Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, had ended an agreement to share relevant information about the ongoing Justice Department investigation with Donald Trump’s legal team—a move that could presage a new arrangement with Mueller. Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, dismissed that interpretation at the time, telling the Washington Post, “No one should draw the conclusion that this means anything about General Flynn cooperating against the president.” But a new report that Kelner met with members of the special counsel’s team suggests that Flynn has, in fact, cut some kind of deal.
According to ABC News, Kelner visited Mueller’s offices in Washington, D.C., on Monday—a development that could indicate the two sides are discussing a plea deal. (Keller declined to comment on the meaning of the meeting.) That could have far-reaching implications for the president and members of his campaign. Of the many Trumpworld characters ensnared in Mueller’s probe, Flynn is perhaps one of the most pivotal; not only does he lay claim to some of the most questionable Russian contacts, but he could also prove to be immeasurably valuable in revealing whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin to derail Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. If anyone knows where the bodies are buried, it’s the man who acted as a key adviser to Trump during his insurgent bid for the White House, the transition, and the early, tumultuous days of his presidency.
Flynn’s testimony could also prove critical in the matter of former F.B.I. director James Comey, whom Trump fired after Comey declined to curtail his investigation into Flynn. (Comey’s dismissal, by Trump’s own admission, was prompted by the Russia investigation, though how exactly that relates to Comey’s interest in Flynn remains to be seen.) An obstruction of justice case “requires a corrupt motive, a corrupt intent,” as Kendall Coffey, who was a Florida U.S. attorney during the Clinton administration, recently told told my colleague Chris Smith. “How much did Trump know about Flynn’s conduct? What were their conversations? Did Trump tell Flynn that he was getting a lot of help from the Russian government?”
What Flynn is willing to say likely depends on what Mueller already knows. . . . Whatever leverage Mueller has over Flynn, however, may be less compelling than his focus on Flynn’s son, who served as de facto chief of staff at his father’s lobbying firm. Sources who spoke to ABC News said that if the former national security adviser had decided to work with the special counsel, it would likely be to take the pressure off his namesake in a “third party credit” deal, wherein prosecutors offer leniency to another person in exchange for the principal subject’s cooperation.
Flynn may be the most dangerous player in Mueller’s “most wanted” card deck—and, with his son in potential legal jeopardy, also the most unpredictable. So far, the White House has been able to spin allegations of Russian collusion as hysterical and overblown . . .
Flynn, the former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama, would not have been naive, for example, about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, for which he was fired. Perhaps he was reckless . . . . But he should not have been ignorant of what is now evident: that the Russian government was making an all-out push to compromise, recruit, influence, or collude with multiple members of the Trump campaign simultaneously. Whether any of those efforts crossed the line into criminal behavior remains for Muller to determine.

No comments: