A Flynn reminder

A retired lieutenant general who had served in the Army for more than 30 years, Flynn was named head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, in 2012. There, he clashed with other Obama administration officials, who viewed him as sloppy with facts and incompetent at management. He was soon pushed out, and stepped down from his post in 2014. By all accounts, he was furious.

  Vox

The fact that he was furious with Obama was icing on the cake.

Out of government, Flynn began commenting on foreign policy and military issues in the media, distinguishing himself with extreme rhetoric about Islam. In February of last year, to take one representative example, he tweeted, “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.” This kind of language, combined with his poor track record at DIA, made Flynn a pariah in the mainstream foreign policy community — but a perfect fit for a Trump campaign that was championing policies like a ban on Muslim immigration.

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By late May 2016, he was mentioned in the press as a potential vice presidential pick for Trump, and in July of that year he gave a now-ironic speech at the Republican convention in which he said (in response to crowd chants) that Hillary Clinton should be locked up.

At the time that Flynn was advising the campaign, he was operating a lobbying and consulting firm called the Flynn Intel Group — which, crucially, also employed his son.

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The Wall Street Journal has reported that Mueller is investigating “an alleged plan” in which Flynn and his son would be paid as much as $15 million for forcibly removing Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania, from the United States and delivering him to Turkey. Per the Journal, Flynn discussed this possibility with Turkish government representatives at a December meeting during the transition, while he was the incoming national security adviser.

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Under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), Flynn needed to publicly disclose any lobbying work he did with the Turkish government when he started doing it. At the time, Flynn’s FARA paperwork said he had worked for a Dutch company — not the Turkish government. In March, Flynn filed paperwork correcting this error.

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If that’s all he did, then he probably would’ve been fine: The US government generally doesn’t arrest people for filing incorrect FARA paperwork after they correct it. But if there is more undisclosed lobbying for foreign governments — more Turkey payments, or undisclosed activity for Russia — than he disclosed in March, then he potentially would’ve faced serious legal trouble.

You’d think that Flynn’s questionably legal behavior would have ended in November, when Trump announced that he would serve as national security adviser in the new administration. That’s especially true since outgoing Obama officials warned the Trump transition team about appointing Flynn. But if anything, it got worse.

Being warned against Flynn by Obama was just doubling the icing.

Throughout the transition, Flynn had several contacts with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. In one early December meeting at Trump Tower, he and Jared Kushner talked to Kislyak about setting up a secret channel through which they could communicate, according to the Washington Post.

Then on December 29, 2016, the day President Barack Obama announced sanctions on Russia in response to the country’s hacking efforts, Flynn and Kislyak reportedly exchanged five phone calls, and they discussed the topic of sanctions. But Flynn reportedly told Vice President-elect Mike Pence and others on the Trump team that sanctions hadn’t come up in the calls, spurring them to make false statements to that effect in public. This conversation between Flynn and Kislyak is part of the just-released document the special counsel sent to the court.

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Attorney General Sally Yates warned the White House that intelligence showed Flynn had been misrepresenting his conversations with Kislyak, and that he was vulnerable to Russian blackmail. The White House did nothing about this until it leaked to the press a few weeks later, when they were spurred to fire Flynn on February 13.

And Sally Yates was then fired ostensibly for not defending Trump's Muslim travel ban.

Flynn was fired on February 13. The next day, Trump held a counterterrorism meeting with his remaining national security officials — which ended when he ordered everyone except then-Director Comey to clear the room. According to Comey’s written notes, Trump then asked him to lay off the FBI investigation into Flynn’s Russia statements, urging Comey “to see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Comey refused to make that promise, and Trump eventually fired him.

Whether the president wanted Flynn protected purely out of friendship, or because he feared what Flynn might know, is something Flynn’s testimony could help answer either way.

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And it’s possible that Flynn has even more Russia ties than is known, since there’s already some reporting that suggests we don’t have the full story when it comes to Flynn and Russia. The Wall Street Journal’s Shane Harris reported in June that Peter Smith, a Trump-supporting GOP operative and private equity executive, embarked on an effort to track down Hillary Clinton’s infamous 30,000 or so deleted emails during the fall of 2016 — and contacted Russian hackers to ask if they had them.

Smith was not part of Trump’s campaign. But according to sources interviewed by Harris, Smith told people working with him that he was coordinating with Michael Flynn, Trump’s main campaign foreign policy adviser.

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Another piece of information pointing toward Flynn, Harris reported, was that US officials were aware of some intelligence that Russian hackers were at least discussing sending leaked emails to Flynn through a third party.

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Smith died this year, reportedly by his own hand.

How handy.

I suppose it may be that the reason Mueller suggested no jail time for Flynn is that Flynn has given him the key bit to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. That would be big. Otherwise, it's hard to understand why Mueller would let such a turncoat off "Scott Free". (Sorry, couldn't resist.)