Michael Flynn pleads guilty of lying to FBI, will testify against Trump | Hacker News Reader

Michael Flynn pleads guilty of lying to FBI, will testify against Trump

abcnews.go.com

46 pointsjzebedee49 comments

Not only did he plead guilty, he also stated that his conversations with the Russians were directed by Trump's transition officials.

I think it's safe to say this is just the beginning of a very, very long winter for Trump.

> according to a confidant, is prepared to testify that Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians, initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria.

Can someone clarify why this is bad (working with Russia to fight ISIS), to someone who is very out of the loop on the whole issue?

Seriously, why is this bad for Trump? I understand Flynn is guilty of lying, and will likely see jail time for it, but that’s a separate issue. The above quote seems to describe what presidents are ordinarily supposed to do — work with other global powers to cooperate towards shared interests (like destroying ISIS).

Because it's illegal to negotiate with a foreign power before you take office. By doing so, you are undermining the sitting president. Richard Nixon did this with Viet Nam in 1968, though this was not proven until after he died.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-t...

Thank you, the "before office" part seems to be the key here I was missing.

Update: Well actually, it looks like that “before office” part was quite literally “fake news”. The request to contact Russia was, in fact, after the election and during the transition: https://mobile.twitter.com/ABC/status/936805557029048321

I’m glad ABC formally retracted this “fake news”, but the fact that it existed at all is deeply disturbing and profoundly irresponsible and incompetent reporting from ABC and others.

I don't see why you think this is so significant. "During the transition" is still "before taking office."

But this was never really about violating that particular law, which is called the Logan Act. No one has ever been prosecuted for violating it. This is about the fact that Flynn lied about the meeting. This is not in dispute, not even by the Trump administration. So... why did Flynn lie? We don't yet know. But Robert Mueller does.

My opinion has nothing to do with this, because the distinction is extremely important as a matter of fact:

Not only is it fully legal for a transition team to work with other state leaders, but in fact the Obama administration explicitly stated in no uncertain terms that they don’t have any problem with it:

This video has been going around showing this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2vO3GNexHYI&t=28m25s

Obviously Flynn pleading guilty to lying IS genuine news, but we’ll have to wait and see exactly what it entails. But make no mistake: This news article made TWO huge claims of news events, and you can see them even in the title of the article. One wasn’t just wrong, it bore the exact opposite message of reality (Trump campaign subverting Obama’s authority, vs the incoming Trump administration working with foreign leaders under the direct blessing of the Obama administration).

I’m not here to defend Trump or Flynn or anyone else, except advocate for the apparently crumbling notion of journliastic integrity. It’s sad how little of it remains. If you want to see Trump impeached, by all means we should continue investigating and bring to light facts. But please, it is important to get the facts right.

Just that. I understand the Logan Act and all but I don't think anyone has ever been charged with that. And impeached over it? I think you need a super majority in the Senate for that - if Trump gets impeached over what's stated here it'll because of all the other crazy stuff he's done.

Who knows though - maybe Flynn has some real dirt viz a vie the Russians but color me skeptical.

It's bad if it was quid pro quo for helping to get trump elected...

He is going to plead guilty to lying to the FBI about those meetings.

Was it Trump or one of his staff? I've only seen it reported that it was directly Trump, which seems beyond stupid even for Trump. Would make more sense it was someone on the staff.

It was reported yesterday that Trump himself was going around to Congressmen trying to get them to drop their investigations and we only have the special investigation because Trump directly pressured Comey. Its not exactly a stretch that Trump himself was directing someone in his closest inner circle

You're right, it was Trump (according to NBC's reporting of Flynn's prepared testimony).

Beyond Stupid seems a distinct possibility though.

That won't matter unless Flynn was directed to do something illegal. 'Having conversations with the Russians,' is not illegal.

People should remember, Nixon wasn't brought down by Watergate. He was brought down by an attempt to cover it up. The way Trump can get impeached, is if he lies. Ordering Flynn to talk to the Russians (eg to see what they had on Clinton or similar), won't get Trump in anything even remotely close to enough trouble to get him impeached.

"The way Trump can get impeached, is if he lies"... what about him insisting that there's no links to Russia, and there actually being direct links to Russia?... that kind of lie, or some other kind of lie?...

>> 'Having conversations with the Russians,' is not illegal.

It totally depends on the nature of those conversations.

Obviously.

The point is, people seem to be commonly regarding the mere act of talking to the Russians as both proof of guilt and as being something inherently illegal. It's extremely far off base from a legal standpoint (that's the witch hunt aspect that has been present since Hillary lost, revenge lust, etc). There is a lot to prove yet, even if Trump did something illegal.

Having conversations with the Russians before taking office is illegal, isn't it?

No, the Clinton camp also talked to the Russians in the lead-up to election day.

Is it illegal to talk to the British or Israelis or Japanese before election day? I mean, comeon. It is not illegal to "talk to the Russians." Russians are not some special illegal class of humans.

What matters is what actions were directed or not, etc. For example, did Trump knowingly instruct Flynn to break the law, can that be proven, did Trump have knowledge of something illegal going on (even if he didn't direct it), what was it, and so on and so forth.

So...

Are you saying this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Act doesn't apply?

Lying liars lie. His credibility is trashed, anything Flynn has to say is moot.

Just like Trump

As a last ditch resort, I wouldn't put it past Trump to start a War with North Korea to distract the nation from the investigation that is quickly closing in on him.

What is distracting is no one is asking...well maybe at NSA and CIA...what Russia wants us to be distracted from seeing or investigating with this Russian election interference ...

They want an end to the Magnitsky Act.

Pfft...easier to do it via lobbying then this kind of unpredictable chaotic bs. All they have managed to do is piss people off on all sides.

It's almost impeachment time.

Why is the bar for impeachment apparently set so high for Trump?

Bill Clinton would have literally been drawn and quartered at this point, and he was popular.

Because "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" is pretty vague.

Can Trump just pardon him?

Trump pardoning Flynn would be a gift to the investigation.

> If someone like Flynn or Kushner were preemptively pardoned, he wouldn’t be able to plead the Fifth Amendment if he were called to testify against Trump. The Fifth Amendment protects citizens against self-incrimination. But if someone has been pardoned, they no longer face the threat of prosecution, and so they can’t use a desire to avoid incriminating themselves as an excuse not to answer a question

Source: 10 legal experts on why Trump can’t pardon his way out of the Russia investigation => https://www.vox.com/2017/8/29/16211784/flynn-charged-fbi-tru...

Depends on what, the special counsel has atleast one state's attorney general on their staff for exactly this reason.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/08/3...

5 years is a pretty short sentence and there were reports of Flynn's son being investigated for crimes as well. This plea deal is certainly just the smallest thing they could charge him with in exchange for his testimony and not hitting him or his family with much more serious charges.

Yes, he can, but he won't, because:

1. Flynn pleaded guilty in part to protect his son, so Trump would have to pardon Flynn's son too to keep Flynn quiet. But Flynn's son hasn't been charged with anything (yet). Trump could issue a blanket pardon for both of them, but that would almost certainly lead to Trump being impeached because that would be such a blatant abuse of power (though in this day and age, who knows?)

2. A presidential pardon is only valid against federal crimes, so it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

3. Even if Trump pardoned Flynn, he has almost certainly already provided damning evidence against Trump. Mueller could release that evidence, which is likely sufficiently damning to get Trump impeached.

Regarding number 1, what is more important is that a pardon has to be accepted, which requires pleading guilty to wrongdoing and removes 5th amendment protections if the person is called in to testify.

Oh yeah, that too :-)

IIRC Trump fired Flynn for lying about what may have been the same issue.

Edit: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/16/trump-no-i-didnt-tell-flynn-...

The pardon has to be accepted, which is akin to saying "yes, I am guilty as hell, and I accept the pardon" and that's something that Flynn may not want to do. My understanding is that it would mean that he could then be compelled to testify and no longer be able to use 5th amendment protections. IANAL though.

It's unclear.

"Presidents do have broad — but not unlimited — pardoning power."

"The framers of the Constitution put the presidential pardoning power into the founding document in order to correct unjust prosecutions or convictions — both of which had occurred frequently in England.

At the Constitutional Convention, there was a proposal to exempt treason from the president's pardoning power — the notion being that if a president conspired with subordinates to commit treason, he should not be able to protect himself by pardoning fellow conspirators." [1]

[1] https://www.npr.org/2017/07/29/539856280/could-trump-pardon-...

Yes. That has its own serious fallout, both in terms of prompting a deeper investigation and drawing an intense spotlight, and blowback with voters.

Voters are actually paying some attention. They will toss the Republicans out of power. That has happened routinely in the last ~70 years to both sides when they cross various lines or the stench gets too great.

Supposedly that would lead to Congress taking action (finally).

I thought this was a nothingburger though? Or is this another example of fake news? Or just another diversion to stop us talking about uranium and emails?

I'm guessing Trump will have another meltdown very soon to try and take up some news time.

"The special counsel charged that Flynn lied about not asking then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions imposed by the Obama administration on December 29, 2016, and saying he did not recall that Kislyak told him Russia would moderate its response as a result." What does this have to do with the elections?

That's how plea deals work. They charge you with fewer crimes in exchange for testimony that incriminates people higher up the ladder.

It's the other stuff Flynn is going to testify about that concerns the election. This charge is something minimal they came up with to seal the plea deal.

And leave open the possibility of subsequently bringing the other charges, in case of pardon or if he doesn't follow-through

Well, it turns out it actually was fake news (ABC just retracted it):

https://mobile.twitter.com/ABC/status/936805557029048321

You’ll probably want to pick another day to sarcastically mock people who distrust the “mainstream media”.

Your confusing a correction with a redaction.

I'd say it's pretty misleading (even fake) of you to attempt to signal that NBC retracted the entire story when the link you provided states that they made a mistake with only one element, and have published a correction. Hmmm.

It's also unrelated to this hnews post, a lot of other sources didn't make this mistake. They also made the correction very quickly, and the entire premise of the article is still correct.

All in all, your comment contains more fake news than the article. Will you redact it?

If we want to get semantically nitpickey, you are confusing redaction with retraction, and “your” with “you’re” :P

Obviously they didn’t retract the whole story, and I never said they did. I said they published fake news, and retracted it (the fake part, obviously). They retracted one of the two major claims you can see by just reading the headline.

The entire headline was profoundly misleading. It would be like saying “Orf will testify that Person drove 120 miles per hour on the highway” but omitting the “while shut down for regular traffic and with the permission and guidance of the highway patrol”.

It’s a lie by omission, and to call it anything else is naive. Looking into this further, it turns out the Obama administration in fact directly confirmed they have no problem with this happening during the transition.

I’m not here to defend Trump, but this whole situation of reporting is deeply lacking in journalistic integrity.

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