Why The Flynn Plea Deal Means A Lot Less Than Some People Think

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Andrew C. McCarthy:

Former Trump-administration national-security adviser Michael Flynn is expected to plead guilty today to lying to the FBI regarding his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.

Flynn, who is reportedly cooperating with the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, is pleading guilty in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to a one-count criminal information (which is filed by a prosecutor in cases when a defendant waives his right to be indicted by a grand jury).



The false-statement charge, brought under Section 1001 of the federal penal code, stems from Flynn’s conversation on December 29, 2016, with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. At the time, Flynn was slated to become the national-security adviser to President-elect Donald Trump. The conversation occurred on the same day that then-president Barack Obama announced sanctions against Russia for its interference in the 2016 election. It is believed to have been recorded by the FBI because Kislyak, as an agent of a foreign power, was subject to monitoring under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Mueller has charged Flynn with falsely telling FBI agents that he did not ask the ambassador “to refrain from escalating the situation” in response to the sanctions. In being questioned by the agents on January 24, 2017, Flynn also lied when he claimed he could not recall a subsequent conversation with Kislyak, in which the ambassador told Flynn that the Putin regime had “chosen to moderate its response to those sanctions as a result of [Flynn’s] request.”

Furthermore, a week before the sanctions were imposed, Flynn had also spoken to Kislyak, asking the ambassador to delay or defeat a vote on a pending United Nations resolution. The criminal information charges that Flynn lied to the FBI by denying both that he’d made this request and that he’d spoken afterward with Kislyak about Russia’s response to it.

Thus, in all, four lies are specified in the one count. The potential sentence is zero to five years’ imprisonment. Assuming Flynn cooperates fully with Mueller’s investigators, there will be little, if any, jail time.

Obviously, it was wrong of Flynn to give the FBI false information; he could, after all, have simply refused to speak with the agents in the first place. That said, as I argued early this year, it remains unclear why the Obama Justice Department chose to investigate Flynn. There was nothing wrong with the incoming national-security adviser’s having meetings with foreign counterparts or discussing such matters as the sanctions in those meetings. Plus, if the FBI had FISA recordings of Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak, there was no need to ask Flynn what the conversations entailed.

Flynn, an early backer of Donald Trump and a fierce critic of Obama’s national-security policies, was generally despised by Obama administration officials. Hence, there has always been cynical suspicion that the decision to interview him was driven by the expectation that he would provide the FBI with an account inconsistent with the recorded conversation — i.e., that Flynn was being set up for prosecution on a process crime.

While initial reporting is portraying Flynn’s guilty plea as a major breakthrough in Mueller’s investigation of potential Trump-campaign collusion with the Russian regime, I suspect the opposite is true.

Speculation that Flynn is now cooperating in Mueller’s investigation stirred in recent days due to reports that Flynn had pulled out of a joint defense agreement (or “common interest” arrangement) to share information with other subjects of the investigation. As an ethical matter, it is inappropriate for an attorney whose client is cooperating with the government (or having negotiations toward that end) to continue strategizing with, and having quasi-privileged communications with, other subjects of the investigation and their counsel.

Nevertheless, as I explained in connection with George Papadopoulos (who also pled guilty in Mueller’s investigation for lying to the FBI), when a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme. In his guilty-plea allocution (the part of a plea proceeding in which the defendant admits what he did that makes him guilty), the accomplice explains the scheme and the actions taken by himself and his co-conspirators to carry it out. This goes a long way toward proving the case against all of the subjects of the investigation.

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Waddaya bet the FBI is taking notes when they question Flynn, unlike when they questioned Hillary and kept no notes?

Nevertheless, as I explained in connection with George Papadopoulos (who also pled guilty in Mueller’s investigation for lying to the FBI), when a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme.

Flynn’s guilty plea signifies that he’s now likely to cooperate fully with the investigation, as it will have a bearing on his sentence. What Mueller wants is information, possibly followed by testimony in court. Flynn is a single piece of the puzzle. Mueller is in the process of putting all the pieces together.

Mueller’s swift moves signal mounting legal peril for the White House

@Greg: No “there” there… again. Join Joy in having a great big downer after ABC clarified their fake news.

@Bill… Deplorable Me: Bring the tissues, poor Greg he was told by his sources there was something big big big, and it was a box inside a box ect til he opened the tiny box and found a crackerjack box tattoo. Each one of those boxes wrapped so pretty too. Let him take great glee in the destruction of a 4 Star General that was trying to destroy ISIS, and Protect a long time Ally in the ME from the anti-semitic UN.
Sad part is he is losing his home and Trump a very rich man cant help him without the Libs making something out of that.

@kitt: Well, it IS big. NO collusion. AGAIN.

Many are calling for a big time Boycott of San Francisco we ll i am willing since the last and only time i was there was over 40 years ago

@Bill… Deplorable Me: Trump should step in and make sure every attorney in this investigation get that 15 buck an hour minimum wage, again saving millions of tax payer dollars.

Greg said”…Flynn’s guilty plea signifies that he’s now likely to cooperate fully with the investigation, as it will have a bearing on his sentence. What Mueller wants is information, possibly followed by testimony in court. …”
Oh yeah, any attorney that puts a proven liar on the stand to gain testimony is begging for a bashing. So , Mr Attorney, your star witness lied then, but not now? Tell me why the court is to believe any of the testimony of your witness!?!

Oh yeah, any attorney that puts a proven liar on the stand to gain testimony is begging for a bashing. So , Mr Attorney, your star witness lied then, but not now? Tell me why the court is to believe any of the testimony of your witness!?!

Will you apply that same logic when Donald Trump is put under oath?

@Greg: Well, we saw what happened when Hillary was under oath, on video, testifying before Congress. She sure didn’t hesitate to lie. So, it’s OK, isn’t it? Or does it simply not bother you because you EXPECT liberals to lie?

Flynn will never testify about anything. He basically pleaded guilty to a non event. If anyone reads the indictment, there is no ‘there’ there. It says, “knowingly make materially false, ficticious and fraudulent statements.” That statement is incorrect and that is the reason nothing will ever come of it. while it might well have been false, ficticious and fraudulent, it was not ‘materially” What he answered falsely was a question that they should not even have asked him and certainly had no ‘material’ value to them and the fact that he gave a false statement did not make any ‘material’ difference to any activity. The FBI should not have even asked him the question they did ask as it had no material value to them and he was acting totally within his authority to do what he did. Had they not asked him an improper question, one that had no value to them, he would have had no reason to not state the full truth. If I were on a Jury, ‘not guilty’.

@Redteam: They put him in the dunking chair, confess or we will see if you float, if you dont float after 15 minutes you are innocent, then we will put your son in the chair.

@kitt: very likely. My point was that what he ‘confessed’ to was not a ‘material’ fact. It was a very unimportant fact and it only involved an action that he was involved in that was completely legal. A good lawyer would make hash of it in about 30 minutes. He will get no sentence of any consequence over it.

@Greg: This was a weak landmine set up by Obama et al.

Easily dismissed.

Anything else? Trump won fair and square. Get over it.