In With Flynn

(By American Zen’s Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

"(N)othing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn." The White House, December 1, 2017

Guess again. The Trump administration has been breached. Finally. And the Trojan Horse is Michael Flynn.

     Just before Halloween, the glacially-moving Mueller probe finally coughed up an hors d'oeuvre in Paul Manafort, with Rick Gates and, eventually, George Papadopoulos (who immediately entered a guilty plea for, as with Flynn, lying to the FBI) thrown in. Today, Michael Flynn, the shortest-lived National Security Advisor in American history, entered a guilty plea before a judge confessing to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials.

     To date, this offers the clearest picture thus far of the Trump teams in the campaign, transition and administration and its collusive ties with Russia. And many legal experts are saying that Flynn wouldn't have entered a guilty plea so willingly unless he was offered a sweetheart immunity deal from the Mueller team. Among the bombshells that came out during Flynn's court appearance was that he was directed to contact high-ranking Russian officials such as former US ambassador Sergey Kislyak at the behest of "very senior transition officials."

     It hasn't been conclusively confirmed but the tea leaves are spelling out that Jared Kushner is at least one of those "very senior transition officials" that pointed Flynn in the wrong direction. From a purely conjectural standpoint, and knowing how disingenuous this administration has been from the very start, painting Kushner as the guy who pushed Flynn in Russia's direction makes perfect sense.

     Just yesterday, Vanity Fair reported that both CNN and The New York Times reported that for about an hour and a half last month, the Mueller team interviewed Kushner about his interactions with Flynn. While there are no flies on the wall who can tell us what was said, we can be reasonably sure that Kushner summoned whatever little plausible deniability he had and denied directing Flynn to the Russians. Or maybe he, too, began negotiating a plea deal and plans to turn state's evidence on Trump. After all, his father's a jailbird. Why shouldn't the same apply to his father in law?

     So in one fell swoop, the Mueller probe penetrated both Trump's administration and his family. And, after imposing a nearly $12 million bail on Manafort and seizing all three of his passports (that we know of) yesterday, that means the Mueller probe will soon graduate into actual criminal trials, with its centerpiece being Donald Trump.

Whoa, Whoa, Did I Say Papadopoulos?!

Why, yes. Yes I did.

     Papadopoulos and his guilty plea is so important to this dismantling of the most ruinous, corrupt and treasonous administration in all of American history because it proved two things- That this "junior, low-level" transition team member not only facilitated contact between Trump and the Russians but that he even acted in bad faith in helping to broker a deal between Trump's two eldest sons, Paul Manafort and several other key people regarding the Russian hack of Hillary Clinton's emails and promising Donald. Jr. to reveal dirt on her.

     Incredibly, even given Clinton's staggering corruption and double-dealing, the Russians had bupkiss on her when a former KGB agent and a Kremlin-linked lawyer met with Donald, Jr. and Eric Trump as well as Manafort at Trump Tower in June last year. When the story broke July of this year, Trump was reported as having literally dictated his son's response, which was to risibly claim the meeting they'd never owned up to until then was all about adopting Russian babies. And this means one thing:

     That Mueller doesn't necessarily need Flynn to reach Trump's crime family. He has at least two ins: Flynn and Papadopoulos. Who, in case you've forgotten, have both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their dealings with the Russians. And, in case, you've also forgotten, Flynn was the guy whom Trump wanted Comey to lay off from during a now-infamous Valentine's Day one-on-one with James Comey. 

     Comey wouldn't play ball. Then Trump fired him on May 9th. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired a long time before that for trying, three times, to warn administration officials about Michael Flynn being compromised. Ms. Yates had testified before Congress about the circumstances surrounding her dismissal. Which, perhaps no coincidentally, was the very day before Comey also got the axe.

     There's an old saying in law enforcement; The one putting up the most opposition to a criminal investigation is likely guiltiest one and is the guy you're looking for. The Trump administration tried to cover for Michael Flynn as long as it could in the interests of self-perservation until it realized it no longer could. And you could expand upon that old law enforcement saying to include, "And the one being protected the most viciously by your biggest opposition is the lynch pin tying the whole thing together."