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Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, resigns following a plea hearing in federal Prettyman Court in Washington, DC December 1, 2017. Sentence documents indicate that it was helpful to the ongoing investigation by the special advocate. .
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Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, resigns following a plea hearing before the Prettyman Federal Court in Washington, DC, December 1, 2017. Sentencing documents indicate that he contributed to the ongoing investigation with the special advocate
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Robert Mueller knows how to keep the secret.
While journalists and lawyers of President Trump speculate on the end of the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, the special advocate launched a ball in the curve this week.
In the sentencing documents of Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to the White House, the authorities indicated that Flynn had offered "substantial" and "first-hand" assistance not only as part of the 39 investigation conducted in Russia, but also in connection with an unspecified criminal investigation – and perhaps also another case.
Accused usually get credit for this type of cooperation when they are convicted. But memoranda from prosecutors Brandon Van Grack and Zainab Ahmad suggest that "some of this benefit may not be fully exploited at this point yet because the investigations in which he has helped are ongoing."
This news, combined with Flynn's disclosure, has met with government investigators 19 times over the past year, bringing a new series of frenzied discussions about the mysterious other areas examined by the special advocate and other members of the Ministry of Justice.
"Nineteen meetings are a lot of meetings," said Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor and a member of the special advisory team tasked with investigating the disclosure of an agent's identity. the CIA under the administration of George W. Bush. "Listen, common sense tells you that Flynn will know a lot of information that Mueller is interested in. Its proximity to Trump, the campaign and the convention … there is collusion, it's the kind of things that happen to be very interesting. "
Here is a partial list of possibilities.
1. Turkey
Zeidenberg and others have raised the possibility that the authorities are examining how the Trump campaign, and now the Trump administration, was handling Turkey's requests to transport a former clergyman from his home in Pennsylvania to the hands of the Turkish regime, who considers him an enemy.The Ministries of Justice and the State questioned whether there was a legitimate legal basis linking the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, to any unlawful activity in Turkey
Flynn has already admitted to lying about his contacts with Turkey, notably for having pleaded against the "withdrawal" of the cleric of the United States, according to which he failed to appear. "Department of Justice.
" He is much harder to understand what's going on here than in a white-collar case, "said Samuel Buell, a former federal attorney who currently teaches at the Duke School of Law. Buell said that if Flynn had offered a testimony of a real bomb, "I think that there would probably have been more charges to start." Instead, he said, Flynn pleaded guilty to one charge of misrepresentation.
2. Money
Others have suggested that Flynn may have information to share on the inner workings of the transition as the focus of Russia, including perhaps campaign financing or inauguration.
This view is supported by a question in the trial last summer of former Trump campaign president Paul Manafort. Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, asked the campaign's deputy chairman, Rick Gates, to say he had charged the inauguration committee some of his personal expenses.
Downing asks if the special attorney questioned Gates about his role in the campaign. Prosecutors quickly opposed and the judge summoned both parties to the hearing for a private conference on the subject.
But information has suggested that a number of Russians with ties to the Kremlin could have channeled money into the world. money in the campaign or the inaugural celebrations of early 2017. A number of oligarchs who attended these ceremonies were questioned about them by the FBI during stops in the United States. Foreign donors are prohibited from donating to inaugural committees.
Mary McCord spent more than 20 years at the Department of Justice. She resigned last year as head of her national security division. She refused to discuss the nature of the information provided by Flynn to the authorities. But she added that all that Flynn had said to prosecutors, they seemed to have bought it.
"The Sentence Memorandum, which argues that a jail sentence is an appropriate and" justified "sentence indicates that the special attorney found Michael Flynn available, credible and substantial help with the special attorney's investigation, "said McCord, who now teaches at the Georgetown Law Center. "I would not expect to see this kind of recommendation if Flynn had been reluctant or was suspected of not providing information, or if the information that he had provided did not allow him to do so. progress the investigation. "
Flynn's lawyers, Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony, have consistently declined to comment on him in the past year. But they are supposed to break their silence on December 11, as they file their own brief, urging the judge not to impose a prison sentence on the 33-year-old military veteran. Flynn should be sentenced on December 18th.
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