You’ve probably already heard the news that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is pleading guilty to two charges of making false statements to FBI officers. Here’s what he’s not getting charged with:
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating former White House national security adviser Mike Flynn’s alleged role in a plan to forcibly remove a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to Turkey in return for millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Under the alleged proposal, Mr. Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., were to be paid as much as $15 million for delivering Fethullah Gulen to the Turkish government, according to people with knowledge of discussions Mr. Flynn had with Turkish representatives. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has pressed the U.S. to extradite him, views the cleric as a political enemy.
He’s also not getting charged with a long list of other things, including lying on his security clearance forms, failing to register as an agent of a foreign government, violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, etc. His son is not being charged with anything either– at least not yet.
I’m already seeing the right complain that Flynn isn’t being charged with lying about a crime. That’s a dubious argument, but it’s at least somewhat accurate. He’s charged with lying about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 22nd, 2016 and on December 29th, 2016.
In the first set of conversations, Flynn apparently asked that Russia either delay or defeat a resolution in the United Nations Security Council. Flynn lied to the FBI about whether Russia ever described their response to this request to him, claiming that they did not.
In the second set of conversations, Flynn requested and received assurances that Russia would not respond strongly to President Obama’s announcement that he was placing new sanctions on Russia in retaliation for their meddling in our election. He dishonestly claimed not to remember that Russia had made these assurances to him.
In return for pleading guilty to these charges, Flynn will be expected to cooperate with the investigation. If he doesn’t do so satisfactorily those other charges, including the kidnapping charge which also implicates his son, could be reintroduced.
Since he is only pleading to relatively minor offenses and ones that are easily proven, it will be impossible to claim that he’s suffering a monstrous injustice. This makes a pardon unlikely, and it also makes it hard to attack the Special Counsel or to justify firing him.
It also makes look Trump look bad for trying repeatedly to shut down both the FBI and the congressional investigations. In order to build an obstruction of justice charge against the president that will stick and have bipartisan resonance, it’s absolutely necessary that there be an underlying crime. Flynn has now pled guilty to crimes, and he’ll testify about other crimes.
Not since John Dean decided to cooperate with the Watergate investigation has a president had worse news than this. It is quite unlikely that Flynn will provide evidence only against Trump’s underlings. He will provide evidence that implicates Trump and probably his sons and son-in-law, too. Without that kind of testimony, Flynn never could have gotten off so lightly.
Just now: @BrianRoss on @ABC News Special Report: Flynn promised full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify that candidate Trump "directed him to make contact with the Russians.” https://t.co/E0tA37GOo0 pic.twitter.com/PmNEO7eekt
— Dan Linden (@DanLinden) December 1, 2017
Cautiously optimistic. It’s been an extraordinarily depressing week or two.
I’ve been coming back to this site every few minutes since I heard the news because I wanted to see BooMan’s analysis – it was worth waiting for.
At some point, Trump is going to fire Mueller. When that happens, we’d better be prepared to go out on the streets and stay there until we force Trump to resign. If we don’t, then the principle that the President can commit crimes with impunity will be established.
That point might be a lot sooner than we think. It might be this month. It might be this weekend.
I can’t get the Tweet to copy but Richard Painter, the former White House counsel (under Bush, if I’m correct) is saying the same thing.
It’s inevitable that Trump does this. There are reports that he is feeling pretty high on himself these days and immune to criticism, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he does it very soon. Especially if the tax bill goes through, giving him an added ego boost.
Which would make Congress more than a little complicit.
<blockquote</i>There are reports that he is feeling pretty high on himself these days and immune to criticism
Another way Trump is like Hitler — the worse things get for him, objectively, the more grandiose and hubristic he becomes.
Of course, Hitler actually was high most of the time.
just a reminder that Trump has to fire several DOJ people in the line of succession until he finds one willing to Bork Mueller.
It only took two firings to get to Bork. I don’t expect it will take many more than that to find someone to fire Mueller.
I wonder, though, at what point does Trump become so radioactive that volunteering to do such an overtly political and obstructive act is just not tenable, even for the most partisan of DOJ personnel? Could we be getting close to the point where it becomes so obvious that Muellers laser pointer is landing between the eyes of Donald Trump, that people have to disassociate themselves from him, simply so they don’t get swept up in the coming tsunami?
Is there really anyone who would fall on their sword for Donald Trump in those circumstances?
I don’t know about that. I believe the DOJ staffers in line of succession are career people, not Trump toadies. And Sessions has recused himself.
Will a DOJ staffer fire both Rosenstein and the long-time FBI Director who is now in charge of the special prosecution team? Anybody in the line of succession almost certainly worked with Mueller in DOJ.
If you were to review the line of succession and assign who you believe would do this at Trump’s bidding, then you would be making a case. But a generalized claim like this doesn’t make the case.
I think it’s way more likely Trump starts pardoning people. And we’ll have to help our institutions defeat such an attempt to obstruct justice.
Next in line after Rosenstein is Rachel Brand. She isn’t career DOJ…she’s a political appointee.
I don’t know much about her, so perhaps she would resign too. But given that she is a Republican loyalist, I don’t see why we should assume that. After all, there is a strong argument to be made that the President should be able to fire anyone in the executive branch, especially if there is no law that would prevent it (as there isn’t in this case…all the regulations we are talking about are merely internal to the executive branch). I imagine she’ll say, just as Bork did, that following Presidential orders is the right thing to do:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/07/02/us/bork-irked-by-emphasis-on-his-role-in-watergate.html
“Just following orders!” (ala Nuremberg?)
Are all presidential orders legal?
Only if you’re a Republican (and the president in question has to be a Republican too).
True, Brand has been a legal servant to the conservative movement in the past. Her personal political ideology appears pretty horrible.
But she refused to accept an appointment to a U.S. Attorney position in the wake of Attorney General Gonzales’ unethical firing of a group of Federal Attorneys, and she resigned from the leadership position she held in Gonzales’ DOJ before the Attorney General was finally made to resign by political pressure.
If Rachel didn’t want to take on that heat, I certainly would be surprised if she wanted to weather this white hot heat on behalf of such a dubious cause and President.
Brand was in DOJ from 2003 to 2007. Mueller was the FBI Director during that entire time.
Thinking about it, though, I think you might be right that Trump is more likely to start issuing pardons than he is to fire Mueller.
That concerns me…if he fires Mueller, there is a chance that it will provoke enough of a reaction. If he just starts pardoning people, I’m not so sure.
My Mom said the same thing today and she has a Poly Sci degree and is wicked smart so I think you are on to something…
The problem with Trump just going ahead and pardoning people is that in the case of flyn there’s about a thousand things Mueller can charge him with. They only charged him today with the slightest charges because he’s obviously cooperating with him. If Trump were to issue a pardon to Flynn what would prevent Mueller from just slapping him with another charge. The problem is that there is so many different things you can charge all of these people with that even if they get a pardon for one thing Mueller can just charge them with something else. It’s just a virtually endless menu of things you can charge them with. Moreover, it’s incredibly difficult, politically speaking, to Pardon someone for something that they’ve already admitted guilt to.
Yes, but which streets? Urban American voted overwhelmingly against Der Trumper and despises him in record numbers. So Blue city demonstrations are effectively meaningless and harass the wrong constituency.
The only sensible locale is DC. It and its illegitimate prez, corrupt national legislature and results-driven partisan Court should be placed under permanent siege. Fire Mueller, Shut DC down.
That’s the only place/thing the corporate media would cover as well.
Trump can try to get rid of Muller but he simply just can’t go ahead and fire him it. It would be a multiple step process that would have to play out over a sustained period of time and realistically speaking there really is no way for him to pull this off. First he would have to get rid of Rosenstein or Sessions. Then he would have to get his replacement appointed and through the entire confirmation process which includes the Senate Judiciary Committee. That in and of itself is no easy task. John Dean put it well when he said the following:
” Trump probably thinks he can find someone he can control, who will fire Mueller should he get close to information that will truly endanger the president or his family. (Trump seems to think he has an FBI director in Christopher Wray whom he can control, and that is true, Wray did a wonderful job of snowing the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing. We will see on Wray.) But if Sessions leaves the post of attorney general, Trump will never get a puppet through the confirmation proceedings. Nixon tried such a ploy, but the Senate Judiciary Committee put so many strings on Nixon’s nominee, Elliot Richardson, that if he had fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, it would have ended not only his public career but his private career as well.”
Then, even if he managed to get a puppet through the Senate confirmation hearings there is still the basic problem that even that person can’t go ahead and just fire Muller. Once again, John Dean puts it as the following:
” Unlike the summary firing of Archibald Cox by Nixon, to remove Mueller or any of his staff would require an investigation and proceeding by the Department of Justice, and would be subject to appeal in federal court. Indeed, these regulations were written to make it difficult to remove a special counsel, and I seriously doubt Trump can succeed. These regulations would have to be nullified by Trump, but I have little doubt Mueller could and would litigate that action, and prevail in federal court because a president cannot remove due process to accomplish his goal of removing the special counsel. Nor with a special counsel as experienced and careful as Mueller, can he exercise any control over the investigation.
So yes it’s possible Trump could get rid of Muller but the bottom line is I think the odds of that happening are extraordinarily low.
Trump could simply fire Sessions or Rosenstein and replace with someone who has already been confirmed to a different post, with no new Senate confirmation needed.
Easy Peasy.
This is moving much faster than the Watergate investigation did. That is an optimistic sign.
But McConnell and Ryan are in no way like Howard Baker and Ed Hutchinson, the investigative committee leaders..
Democrat Carl Albert (OK) was Speaker of the House
Republican Hugh Scott was Senate Minority Leader.
Robert Byrd was Senate Majority Leader.
Get ready for a lot of plugging of ears and LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA.
Like Nixon, absent a quid pro quo, there is not certainty about anyone’s loyalty except for known true believers in The Cause beyond the person (Roger Stone, for example).
And in most executive offices, the chain of candidates to take the place of refuseniks gets less tightly bound the further you go through the bench.
Anyone put together a hypothetical list of who would do the deed for Trump?
My bet is that Sessions breaks all protocol and does it as a victory lap for the Roy Moore win in Alabama. Another reason to hope that Alabama Democrats can score and upset.
The other deterrent to Trump dismissing Mueller is the emerging quality of reporting what Americans would truly be appalled about even from Trump (high bar I know).
The tax bill has been/remains the #1 priority for McConnell/Ryan (escalated by the fact they may be getting rid of the individual mandate in the process). Once Trump signs that bill into law they will have no further need for him, and could easily jettison him on obstruction of justice charges in favor of Pence.
In fact, if the bill winds up being as unsuccessful and unpopular as the analysis shows, calling it the Trump Tax Cut and blaming him (after his ouster) would give the GOP a chance to save face in 2020.
A high level staffer of Trump’s team has now pled guilty to a felony. That changes the equation. This isn’t the only crime which has been committed. Flynn is now an ongoing cooperative witness. It’s been established in court documents. Firing Mueller wouldn’t put that genie back in the bottle.
I’ve made my case elsewhere on this thread for why I think it’s unlikely that Trump will be able to fire Mueller. The President has another, easier path to try to enable his lawless corruption.
Flynn states in his guilty plea that he was directed to make improper contacts with foreign leaders (not just Russians) by senior Trump staffers. That brings it down to a very small group of leaders; Flynn was in the tip-top leadership level.
In fact, Flynn appears ready to testify that Trump directed him to make improper and illegal contacts with foreign leaders.
It’s hard to believe that Trump wasn’t involved in directing Flynn to execute such an unethical, hubris-filled clusterfuck of a plan. The whole stupid, lawbreaking set of acts is exactly the sort of thing Trump would like to direct.
My intuition agrees with yours that this looks like a Trump scheme from the beginning, connecting the quo to the already delivered quid pro and asking what it is Russia wants.
I recommend Seth Abramson’s epic Twitter thread on this story.
I think he’s overly optimistic about a lot of things. But he makes a compelling argument that Trump, Pence, and Kushner have many sleepless nights ahead of them.
I like him – he did seem quite grandiose in several of today’s predictions, though.
He hasn’t been wrong yet. And he’s got the prosecutor cred.
I agree. I like Seth Abramson for legal analysis, but as a political pundit, he needs to stay in his lane.
He does see things well before other people do, though. He spotted Popadopolous months before everyone else. His keen eye for connecting dots is valuable.
Do you have a link for that?
https://twitter.com/SethAbramson/status/936602442996813824
Thanks
Wow. That’s a helluva read. Thanks for the link.
As soon as the Kislyak conversations were revealed, it was blindingly obvious that Nutjob General Flynn had been directed to make the contact and present the offer, he wouldn’t do such a thing on his own initiative. So it’s nice to see that the only possible version of events has now been proven.
No elected Repub (or Trump voter for that matter) is going to care that heroic Prez-elect Der Trumper violated some unknown statute by undercutting the Kenyan traitor Obammy in his last weeks in office. So the interesting question is what beans will Flynn spill on Der Trumper’s collusion with the now-established Russian election interference.
That’s the only thing any sitting Repub or regretful Trumpite (all 5% of them) are (maybe) going to “care” about. Note that the above tweet speaks of directions from “candidate” Trump, not “prez-elect”, so that’s encouraging….
Just heard on MSMBC “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team”.
Was Jaed Kushnor
Jarvanka are denying that, fwiw.
Time will tell. Wouldn’t it be nice, though??
That was certainly my take (once I got past my ingrained mental resistance to referring to that punk as “senior”.)
I’m sure someone has noted this but it just hit me:
Flynn seems to be getting of very very light but there’s no mention of Mike Jr so Mueller still has plenty leverage.
He’s getting off lightly because he’s giving up the goods.
Until he fails to give up the goods, he’s getting off lightly and Mueller might lighten Manafort’s situation a little to see if Manafort will play along.