key thing was that michael flynn called the russian ambassador, said, please don t retaliate on these sanctions. the obama administration just put into effect against you. and then went back and told senior officials in the trump orbit that he did that. and was actually told by some officials to do that. so maybe maybe we ll learn the question osh the answer to the question of who were the officials, and what was the motive? right. also of course there is the question of what the white house did when informed by sally yates about michael flynn, because there was a window between the time that sally yates made a point of talking of don mcgahn and michael flynn being fired. 18 days trns pierd from the time she ran to the white house to say there is reason to believe that the national security adviser is compromised. and compromised by russia. a geopolitical rival for decades. the notion that that took 18
a leadership role by the trump children during the transition he put himself in a position to have more influence. i think all of these are factors that will be examined in the coming months. i don t want to go too far in guessing the what the memo shows us from the special counsel. i think only they know the cards they hold. and this could be something of a disappointment. what s interesting about it is we have heard nothing about michael flynn. yes. for almost a year. almost a year. it s kind of stunning. it is. that s why what laura said is so important. yes. about the fact that the mueller team has had that long to gather and glean as much as they could from michael flynn and made a very proactive choice to do not once twice, three times, four times to keep talking to him. one thingly add although i agree it s dangerous to guess because we really don t flow. let s be careful. also some of this might be classified and might be redacted. it might be blocked from u
stone was getting information or whether it was puffery. a lot of the issue with figuring out what roger stone is doing often depends on figuring out, you know, how much is sort of him making himself writing himself into history which he has a habit of doing. but i don t expect this to change when democrats take over. i don t think. i think this is his position and i think we will do this for some time. laura in terms of when we may learn from the mueller team about flynn tonight, what s sort of the spectrum of things we could learn. well, of course michael flynn had a problem nent role not necessarily in the administration he was fired three weeks in. but his role is particularly unique in that he was part of the transition. while we talk about the firing of james comey, the fbi director, remember the important question the president insin eighted, can you see your way to letting michael flynn goes? and see begins the obstruction of justice inquiry perhaps. en also the roll he
went on in the trump white house, the fact that he is saying senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards, i would be a little nervous if i were the people involved in the obstruction of justice investigation, starting of course with the president of the united states. that statement that senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards, i don t think that is just filler material. i think that is a statement of how mueller is going to approach the remainder of his investigation as he starts thinking about the people in the white house. and, colonel peters that was something you said earlier that he should be held to a higher standard given his background. i mean, i m sure books will be written about this. but i m sort of fast nature with the idea of what happened to michael flynn? sort of what did from going from somebody who was universally described as a operational,
breaking news right now the movement we have been waiting for. all day. the sentencing memo for michael flynn just hit. we learn he provided substantial assistance, michael flynn has to the special counsel. now we are getting a copy of it. we want to get a tape from sara murray and shimon. it s about a 13-page document as you pointed out. the special counsel asking for no prison time. asking for no prison time because of the level of cooperation. citing substantial assistance. and we should remember we really dent know very much about what was going on with michael flynn. he struck this plea deal in december of last year. and every time they tried to move forward with sentencing, the mueller team said let s kick it back we need more time with him. now they agreed they were willing to move forward. but we have gotten little information about what he was providing to the government that they found to be so valuable.