While the mainstream media projects that former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn’s guilty plea in lying to the FBI presages the possibility that the case of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government will break wide open, there’s another possibility: that special counsel Robert Mueller is about to unleash a wave of minor charges with no underlying crimes.
Here’s how.
Flynn’s plea deal suggests that his crime was lying to the FBI about conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak — after the election. Supposedly, Flynn spoke with Kislyak about backing off of retaliation against Obama administration sanctions, and also about delaying a late-Obama administration United Nations resolution designed to condemn Israeli settlements. It’s completely unclear why Flynn would lie about such conversations; they weren’t illegal. In fact, most Americans would want the transition team to talk to foreign governments about the policy to be implemented in mere weeks.
But Flynn apparently lied, and now admits to it.
That means that Flynn will be testifying against other members of the administration who supposedly told him to speak with Kislyak. Speculation suggests that the top official was Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. But so what? Kushner committed no crime in telling Flynn to reach out to the Russians in order to quash bad Obama policy, particularly on Israel.
Unless Kushner fibbed to the FBI too, for some unspecified reason.
