After reading the filing and looking over Vol 1 of the Mueller Report again, it seems like Judge Sullivan was right that there was more that Flynn knew about and could provide to prosecutors. The ire that Judge Sullivan expressed in December at the Flynn hearing was directed at Flynn’s lack of patriotism, but it was also a dig at the OSC for appearing to go soft on an obvious traitor.
Sullivan’s demand of the OSC to make this filing, unseal it, and demand further that audio recordings become public are all about telling the OSC to stop going soft on these traitors. Expose it all and tell the American people.
I found it a little galling that the OSC highlighted Flynn’s cooperation in the investigation and indictment of Bijan Kian as a sign of good cooperation. As the Judge noted, he could’ve (and should’ve) faced prosecution for those Turkey related charges and would’ve face 10 years in jail. He basically transferred all of his liability exposure to Kian and threw him under the bus to save his own ass. This is like the leader throwing an underling under the bus. Is that really worth saying ‘kudos, no jail time Mikey’?!!!. No. Flynn should only get a reduction in jail time if he flips on the big players and that an actual indictment is filed. That hasn’t happened yet. Either Mueller is soft, or it’s being handled through one or more of the 14 cases that were referred out. Why again did the OSC offer him no jail time when they didn’t indict Kushner, Junior or Trump Sr. based on Flynn’s cooperation? Judge Sullivan seems to be asking the same question.
Substantively, we’re learning that the Trump legal team and allies in Congress and other liaisons made repeated attempts to dissuade Flynn from cooperating with the Special Counsel. I’ve speculated that it’s a former Nunes aide, but it likely was more than 1 person and more than 1 approach. That’s witness tampering and obstruction of justice. We see this pattern all through Vol 2. Most of it is directed by Rudy Giuliani, who successfully persuaded Manafort to renege on his plea deal and spend time in the slammer to protect Trump. Why the f**k is Rudy not under investigation or indictment by now? I think Judge Sullivan is kinda saying the same thing. As Maddow said, how is it that Trump hasn’t been impeached for obstruction yet? This is so blatant that it’s crying out for a remedy.
The other thing that stands out after re-reading portions of Vol 1 is that Flynn turns out to be the Russians go-to person to connect with the Trump crew during the campaign, the transition and in the Administration. A good portion of Vol 1 details the many attempts the Russians made to find links into the Trump circle to push their Ukraine and anti-sanctions agenda, but they were often frustrated or underwhelmed by the people they connected with…except for Flynn. Even Mueller quips, “Despite Kushner’s conclusion that Kislyak did not wield influence inside the Russian government, the Transition team turned to Flynn’s relationship with Kislyak on both issues.” [the two issues were the Israeli settlements resolution at the UN + the response to Obama election sanctions against Russia on 12/29/16). [As an aside, the reason Mueller seems to point to Flynn as the key liaison w/Russia is because Kushner lied and covered up so much about his own connections that Mueller couldn’t find the evidence to really nail him].
The thing is the Russians knew immediately to contact Flynn when Obama issued those sanctions. Flynn was the guy who was assigned the task of ‘finding the missing 30k emails’. Flynn provided the most evidence to Mueller about Donald Trump’s personal knowledge of the Russia-Wikileaks connection and his strong desire to leverage and use this information. How did Flynn know all of this if he wasn’t at the center of things? What does Flynn know about the Cambridge Analytica connection? Did Flynn know about and help the Trump campaign direct efforts to align social media messaging with what the IRA was doing? There’s much more here and Mueller seems to have been protecting Flynn at some level for some purpose. Judge Sullivan is having none of it.
We’re going to be able to see the transcript of the call Kislyak had with Flynn. That’s going to further expose the cover-up that took place after the call. Even Mueller’s report doesn’t fully explain why Flynn lied to the FBI. Why is it that everyone told the same cover story. Mueller indicates that it’s fairly likely that Trump knew what Flynn told Kislyak but he can’t prove it definitively. Why did Mike Pence and everyone insist that Flynn lying to Pence was the reason why he was fired as opposed to, Trump simply finding someone to take the fall for the Russia matter so he could get Comey to shut down the investigation? I think we might be getting a little closer to some fundamental revelations.