Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Michael Flynn for alleged crimes related to Turkey
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Michael Flynn for alleged crimes related to Turkey, and was reported Friday as probing a newly uncovered, allegedly criminal meeting. If Mueller can make the charges stick, Flynn might well make a plea deal to cooperate on the Russian investigation, like the deal recently made by George Papadopolous, changing the whole legal landscape for the Trump Russian scandal.
I wrote about a prior stage in the Flynn pursuit last March 30. The investigations at that time centered on one key first meeting between Flynn and Turkish officials, who paid him half a million dollars as a foreign agent. Flynn had been foreign affairs adviser to then-candidate Donald Trump, and became President Trump’s National Security Adviser. Flynn failed in his legal duty to register at the time as a foreign agent for Turkey, violating the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Also, he was suspected of being at the center of collusion involving Russia.
Now Mueller is apparently questioning witnesses about a key second meeting, this one at the 21 Club in New York. At this meeting, a $15 million payment from Turkey to Flynn was discussed. As with the first meeting, Flynn was to help with a plot kidnap Fethullah Gulen, a Moslem cleric whom Turkey accuses of platting the attempted coup in July 2016. The kidnapped cleric, whom the United States has made no move to send to Turkey, would be grabbed here in America and hustled to Turkey in gross violation of law.
Back in March, Flynn approached Congressional intelligence committee seeking immunity in return for his testimony. Although the central gravamen of possible charges against Flynn is Turkey, there can be little doubt that what he would tell does not concern Turkey, a matter of limited public interest, but would concern Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, a matter of very great public interest.
Flynn’s cooperation with Mueller might follow the path marked out by the Trump aide on foreign affairs, George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos lied to the FBI out of loyalty to President Trump, and, when caught, pled guilty to lying to the FBI and has now been cooperating with Mueller on Russian collusion.
It is important that Papadopoulos pled guilty and faces sentencing. That way, he has credibility as a witness in a criminal trial against other Trump aides, having accepted punishment himself. Flynn would presumably plead guilty to serious Turkish crimes, and thereby to have credibility in a criminal proceeding against others.
Flynn certainly has Russian ties. He appeared on the Russian state channel, RT, and attended an RT-sponsored dinner in Moscow, making a speech for $33,000, and sitting alongside Vladimir Putin. He had key contacts with the former Russia ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak.
The official Trump Administration explanation for why Flynn was dismissed as National Security Ambassador is that he misled others, notably Vice President Pence, about the extent and nature of his Kislyak contacts. That is a very convenient explanation. It does not say anything about whether Flynn was a danger to Trump because of what he would say about Russia collusion once forced by his legal vulnerabilities to talk.
There are several reasons to ask whether a cooperating Flynn might not only speak about what was know or done as to Russian collusion in the Trump campaign generally, but what was known to Trump himself specifically. First, he talked directly with Trump, without anyone between them. It does not require climbing a pyramid, as with Papadopoulos, to get to conversations between someone and Trump himself. Flynn knows about what was discussed because he was there, discussing.
Moreover, it is hard to see why Mueller would make a decent plea deal with Flynn just to bag some low-level culprits. Flynn himself is so high up that it is counterproductive to cut him any slack just for testimony against lesser campaign aides. The value of Flynn is what he can tell about Trump himself, rather than just the small fry.
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Flynn is in line for major felony charges. So is his son.
The plot thickens
He is being investigated for conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
That ought to keep him "mulling his options".
I have seen rumors that this case is a done deal, but as I havent seen it in mainstream media I wont post it.