Trump/Russia 2016 election investigation (continued, now with Ukraine!)

As the TPM Josh Marshall just noted, Judge Sullivan appears to be goading the government into revoking Flynn’s credit for cooperation, at least to some extent.

He seems to be warning Flynn that his guilty plea and cooperation won’t keep him out of jail, and asking if he doesn’t want to reconsider his guilty plea.

Yep. Basically, “You still owe money on this car. Sure you don’t wanna go back to work and pay it up?”

Hmmm, I’m no expert in this field so does anyone know if this sort of thing normally happens when the National Security Adviser to a reality show President is implicated in working with foreign agents?

You fire the writers for making such absurd and unbelievable stories.

Judge Sullivan is a badass.

Flynn’s lawyers got the message, they’re asking for a delay in sentencing.

Shame. I was looking forward to putting “in like Flynn” back into my vernacular with a whole new meaning. Now I have to wait.

Flynn going to go back to Mueller and the EDVA like John Cusack in The Sure Thing. “I’ll do anything. I’ll sing showtunes! FEEEEEELINGS! NOTHING MORE THAN FEEEEEEELINGS…”

Great article from yesterday about Mueller’s unwavering dedication to privacy and apolitical nonpartisanship:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/robert-mueller-is-the-most-unknowable-man-in-washington/2018/12/14/9e37e1a0-fe41-11e8-ad40-cdfd0e0dd65a_story.html

“I always joke that Bob Mueller has turned down more interview requests in his career than most people in Washington ever get in the first place,” says Garrett Graff, author of “The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller’s FBI and the War on Global Terror” and Mueller’s de facto biographer. “Contrary to every single thing that the president tweets today, Mueller is and always has been probably the most apolitical nonpartisan person in the city. He does everything that he can to avoid the public spotlight and anything even slightly resembling politicking.”
[…]
“Bob Mueller is doing exactly the right thing by simply focusing on this investigation and trying to determine the truth,” says Panetta. “I don’t know what the final result is going to be, but I have a sense that whatever that final report shows that people are going to thank Bob Mueller for the way he handled this.”

LOL! Nice.

The mythmaking around Mueller is really interesting to watch. He’s been cast as a sort of implacable Force of Justice, unimpeachable in character, and the living embodiment of those American ideals (“a government of laws, not men”) that many of us feel that Trump is endangering. He is in a sense the anti-Trump, not only because his mandate would seem to put him on a collision course with the President, but because he embodies characteristics (reticence, unimpeachable professional credentials, unassailable character) that are diametrically opposed to Trump.

It’s a lot to lay on anyone’s shoulders, but he seems to be handling it as well as anybody could.

What I still don’t quite know is who actually picked him for this gig. Was it Rosenstein?

Rosenstein appointed Mueller to be Special Counsel.

Reading the accounts of the sentencing hearing, it sounds like the judge was questioning Flynn under oath to specifically refute the “Flynn wuz railroaded!” bs being pushed to the deranged right-wing machine.

Though it’s not like sworn testimony will do anything to shut those people up.

True.

But it is a reminder that reality exists outside the bubble, and a federal judge can and will fuck up your life if you spout the bubble-based bullshit in court filings. Sullivan was making a point. This isn’t about spin or what the Fox & Friends/ Sanders propaganda machines says – this is about the rule of law.

Yes, agree, but I also think he was saying if I sentence you now you’re going to jail, so maybe you would rather cooperate some more first?

Yeah, I think Flynn’s family thought this was like most hearings where if the prosecutor recommends no jail, the judge goes along with it. Sullivan was clearly saying, “ok, that’s good and all, but I’m kinda pissed about all this stuff and don’t give a rat’s about what the SCO says.”

Reading between the lines of what Ken White and emptywheel and Renato Mariota are saying, though, it sounds like Flynn’s defiant stance on “entrapment” and being railroaded probably went a long way to provoking Judge Sullivan’s anger and vehemence today. I get the feeling from those folks that had Flynn kept his head down, apologized, and just humbly admitted guilt (again) in his sentencing brief that this would all have been settled.

I think General Flynn got some very bad legal advice, at the very least.