A little over a week after his legal team severed ties with President Trump’s legal team, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI regarding his conversations with former Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak in January 2017, a charge to which Flynn is expected to plead guilty and a signal that the retired general is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. An indictment against Flynn has been predicted for some time, especially since former campaign aide George Papadopoulos pled guilty to a similar charge, and could be a prelude to President Trump being charged with obstruction of justice (among many other dominos falling).
Trump has long been concerned with the investigation of Flynn, even going so far as to send the message “stay strong” to the man who was an early adopter to the Trump campaign. While the president hasn’t tweeted about this latest Flynn news, he — and his legal team — apparently learned about Flynn’s plea from news reports, according to the Daily Beast. This seems appropriate, given that former FBI director James Comey, who was likely fired for not stopping his investigation of Flynn, also learned that he was fired from a TV news report.
The White House has already started to spin this in their favor, via CNN’s Jim Acosta, who spoke to a White House source: “Poor judgment. But this was expected. Trump fired him for lying to the VP. Of course, he lied to the FBI too.”
(Via The Daily Beast & CNN)