The Flynn Plea and Media Hysteria

The news media is in a full fledged feeding frenzy over  Friday’s news that former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI. (18 USC 1001). Flynn is cooperating with the special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, in the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to influence the 2016 presidential election. Today, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told CNN that this was “the end of the beginning” (of the Trump administration). It was highly ironic that CNN reached out to Blumenthal to talk on and on about the “lies” coming from Donald Trump when he was the guy who falsely claimed to be a Vietnam veteran.

But let’s take a look at what may be going on with the plea deal involving Flynn.

First of all, when Flynn was interviewed by the FBI in January 2017, he lied to them about December 2016 contacts with the Russian ambassador when he was part of Trump’s transition team (post election). He lied to the FBI as to whether he had discussed with the Russians two items:

1 That the Russians should not escalate the diplomatic riff over the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the Obama administration in the wake of accusations they had interfered with the election.

2 That the Russians should delay a UN Security Council vote against Israel over the settlements issue.

It should be pointed out here that Flynn was fired from the Trump administration 25 days into the administration when it was revealed that he had lied to Mike Pence about the same issue.

Whatever Flynn did, based on what we know, it has nothing to do with Trump and allegations that he and/or his team colluded with the Russians to influence the election, which is the basis of the investigation for which Robert Mueller was appointed special prosecutor.

Secondly, had Flynn not lied to the FBI about what he had done with the Russian ambassador, it is highly unlikely he would have been charged with anything-unless Mueller wanted to drag out the 1799 Logan Act designed to prevent US citizens (non-governmental) from negotiating with (adversarial) foreign governments “having a dispute with the United States”. To date, no person has ever been convicted of violating the Logan Act. (Not even Jane Fonda was charged with this violation when she went to Hanoi during the Vietnam war.) In addition, it could be argued that a transition team can qualify as part of the government

Despite the victory laps on CNN and MSNBC, it still comes down to this: Is Flynn going to testify that Trump and/or his campaign team “colluded” with the Russians to influence the 2016 election? We don’t know that yet, and if he is, Mueller is going to need a lot of corroboration due to Flynn’s already-documented false statements, which will impact negatively his testimony in any eventual court of law.