Mueller Friday: Michael Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about Russia contacts

Lock him up!

For­mer nation­al secu­ri­ty advis­er Michael Fly­nn plead­ed guilty Fri­day to lying to the FBI about his con­tacts with Russ­ian Ambas­sador Sergey Kislyak, and court records and peo­ple famil­iar with the con­tacts indi­cat­ed he was act­ing in con­sul­ta­tion with senior Trump tran­si­tion offi­cials, includ­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kush­n­er, in his deal­ings with the diplomat.

Flynn’s admis­sion to the charge Fri­day in fed­er­al dis­trict court in the Dis­trict could be an omi­nous sign for the White House, as Fly­nn is coop­er­at­ing in the ongo­ing probe of pos­si­ble coor­di­na­tion between the Trump cam­paign and the Krem­lin to influ­ence the 2016 election.

His plea revealed that he was in touch with senior Trump tran­si­tion offi­cials before and after his com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Kislyak — rebut­ting the idea that he was a rogue operator.

This is a huge devel­op­ment in Spe­cial Coun­sel Robert S. Mueller’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Rus­si­a’s inter­fer­ence in the 2016 Unit­ed States pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and the fall­out from that inter­fer­ence. In Octo­ber, Mueller brought charges against Trump’s for­mer cam­paign man­ag­er Paul Man­afort, his deputy Rick Gates, and cam­paign advis­er George Papadopou­los. Court doc­u­ments filed then showed Papadopou­los had agreed to coop­er­ate with the inves­ti­ga­tion in exchange for leniency.

Fly­nn has now agreed to coop­er­ate as well, to spare him­self from an even longer list of charges. In a state­ment regard­ing his plea, Fly­nn said:

It has been extra­or­di­nar­i­ly painful to endure these many months of false accu­sa­tions of ‘trea­son’ and oth­er out­ra­geous acts. Such false accu­sa­tions are con­trary to every­thing I have ever done and stood for. But I rec­og­nize that the actions I acknowl­edged in court today were wrong, and, through my faith in God, I am work­ing to set things right.

My guilty plea and agree­ment to coop­er­ate with the Spe­cial Counsel’s Office reflect a deci­sion I made in the best inter­ests of my fam­i­ly and of our coun­try. I accept full respon­si­bil­i­ty for my actions.

Read the charge against Fly­nn here, signed by Mueller.

Fly­nn was fin­ger­print­ed and pho­tographed at an FBI field office pri­or to appear­ing in U.S. Dis­trict Court with his attor­ney. Asked by Judge Rudolph Con­tr­eras if he was plead­ing guilty, Fly­nn replied, “Yes, Your Honor.”

Sen­tenc­ing has been put off for the time being. Fly­nn won’t be jailed for now either, but he will be required to check in with the FBI on a week­ly basis.

“This is not a meet-in-the-mid­dle deal. Both sides did not assess their risks and decide to hedge them with a com­pro­mise,” writes Har­ry Lit­man.

“Rather, as we’ve known for weeks, the spe­cial coun­sel, Robert Mueller, believed he had suf­fi­cient evi­dence to indict Mr. Fly­nn on a long list of crim­i­nal charges, includ­ing mon­ey laun­der­ing, tax offense and false state­ments. Mr. Mueller’s team, as is stan­dard pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al prac­tice, pre­sent­ed Mr. Fly­nn with that list and helped him under­stand that his life as he knew it had ended.”

Lest we for­get: at the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion last year, Fly­nn accused Hillary Clin­ton of putting Amer­i­ca’s secu­ri­ty at extreme risk and then led fren­zied Repub­li­can Nation­al Com­mit­tee del­e­gates in chants of “Lock her up”:

Turns out it was Michael Fly­nn who put Amer­i­ca’s secu­ri­ty at risk.

Fly­nn deserves to spend some time behind bars for his crime, even if he pro­vides evi­dence that helps Spe­cial Coun­sel Mueller hold account­able oth­er mem­bers of Trump’s regime who may also have bro­ken the law.

The charge of lying to the FBI could earn him up to five years in prison, although he may receive a lighter sen­tence if his coop­er­a­tion allows Mueller to land big­ger fish.