As we sift through the details of the Flynn court documents we inevitably see them through a distorted prism because we know 2017 as it happened rather than as the Trump team intended it to unfold. This is particularly important for the roughly three months between candidate Trump’s election victory on November 8th, 2016 and Mike Flynn’s ouster on February 13th, 2017.
We see Flynn’s covert communications with Ambassador Kislyak; we see the escalation of the FBI’s scrutiny of Flynn; we know other top Trump officials, like Jared Kushner, were meeting with Kislyak and others and also possibly trying to execute financial transactions with Russian government officials. It’s all sort of a jumble. But the logic of events only really comes into focus when we realize that there was a sort of race taking place between the Trump team’s effort to arrange a rapid rapprochement with Russia in the first weeks of January and February and a mix of the intelligence community, the national security apparatus and the press piecing together what had happened during the 2016 election. Imagine it as a starting pistol firing off on the morning of November 9th, with both teams racing to get more of their critical work done by the end of January. Read More
Note a few things we now know from the follow-on reporting on the Flynn plea agreement.
The senior transition official who Flynn called into to confer on his conversations and negotiations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak was KT McFarland. Flynn conferred with McFarland and McFarland conferred with a group of other senior officials which, as I noted last night on the basis of the contemporaneous pool reports, appears to have been Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway and Reince Priebus. Read More
Massive wealth transfer to top earners? Check.
Blow up the deficit? Check.
Hobble Obamacare? Check.
Who was with President-Elect Trump on December 29th 2016 at Mar-a-Lago? The pool report from that day helps clarify that. Read More
The top responses from the White House today have been, first, “everybody lies in Washington” and now claiming that the Obama White House in fact authorized Mike Flynn’s secret calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.
lol wut? White House now saying Obama "authorized" Flynn's conversations with Russian Ambassador. pic.twitter.com/0VVl0TN2ci
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 1, 2017
The key question out of the Flynn plea agreement is the identity of the person referenced as a “senior official of the Presidential Transition Team” and another termed a “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team”.
Here’s why this is important. Read More
Statement from Trump lawyer Ty Cobb …
“Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security Advisor at the White House for 25 days during the Trump Administration, and a former Obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the FBI.
“The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year. Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn. The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel’s work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.”
There’s no way to know for sure. We’ll never know definitively. But this morning, before the Flynn news broke, I was thinking that President Trump’s behavior has seemed more wild and erratic in recent days. Yes, the baseline standard is pretty high. But over the last week or so we’ve seen a number of reports of Trump saying wilder things in private to associates and advisors. He seemed to be gravitating back to the kinds of transgressive behaviors and assertions he makes when he’s under threat or pressure. Read More
I.F. Stone famously said “All governments lie.” This may be the first time I’ve heard this maxim invoked as a defense. The initial spin from the Trumpers about the Flynn plea deal is “everyone lies!”
Watch.
Good Lord. Trumpers roll out what I guess you'd call the I.F. Stone defense abt Flynn. "Everyone lies!" https://t.co/ksLozUPzIl pic.twitter.com/ysfCKcVJQM
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 1, 2017
Mueller charges Mike Flynn with making false statements to FBI.
We’ll be bringing you more info as it comes out. On its face, this seems almost certainly like Flynn is being charged with a good deal less than he could be charged with – presumably because of a cooperation deal. I stress “seems”. What we know is that he’s been charged with lying to the FBI.
9:19 AM: Flynn to appear in court this morning at 10:30 AM, according to Jeff Toobin on CNN.
Here’s a quick backgrounder (sub req.) on how to interpret what we’re hearing in terms of the larger Russia investigation.