vice president mike pence is michael flynn denied having the conversations at all. that s the same thing he told the f.b.i., then it s clear they know that he had those conversations and the content of the conversation is irrelevant considering it was a lie to federal investigators. bill: they broke off communications two weeks ago. we talked about that and that is the legal team on behalf of general flynn had been sharing information with the president s legal team and that ended before thanksgiving. this case is moving forward. katie, put you on stand by. i have more from the white house. sandra: john roberts is live at the white house for us. any reaction there, john? no official reaction yet. we re expecting a statement in 20 or 30 minutes time on the outside. not much to report in terms of reaction. i had some off the record conversations with some sources who are intimately involved in all of this but let me give you backup and give you a little bit of perspective on all o
supporter of the president. sort of take us back to this time period for which this reflects. you will test my memory. so much has happened since. but you ll remember that flynn came in and he was one of the president s earliest supporters and at all the campaign events and the president was appreciative of the fact that he had a major figure in the military and in the intelligence community because of flynn s background at the nsa the dia, rather, behind him. it was clear flynn would get a top position at the white house. during the transition clearly you will have some contact with leaders of foreign nations or their the fact that flynn had these conversations with kislyak that he did not disclose to the president or to the vice president or to other people in the president s chain of command which then led to those embarrassing moments that
in flynn s case it doesn t seem like it would have been difficult to prove. bill: help us understand. i was mentioning the timeline here because of the speed by which he was in and then he was out. it s the first of december 2017 right now. so you re 11, almost 12 months removed from the incident i described a moment ago. if you had something, if you are robert mueller, would you know it by now? i think you would. we don t know when flynn started to cooperate but there is a good indication that it was relatively recently when he broke away from the joint defense agreement with trump figures. but having said that, a great deal seems to be known about these meetings. and so we have to sort of step back a bit and ask how serious is this beyond flynn himself? it is sad and quite serious for
was the trigger for flynn s downfall here at the white house. you can t lie to the boss. you can t keep information from the boss particularly one that s the subject of an f.b.i. investigation. then there is also flynn s son and what is going to happen with that. this case really does remind me more than anything at this point again, we don t know the terms of the plea agreement, but it reminds me of what happened with scooter libby over the valerie plame investigation. the special counsel fitzgerald knew within hours, if not days, it was richard armitage at the state department who leaked the name of valerie plame and scooter libby took the fall for it because he made false statements to the f.b.i. we know that flynn made false statements to the white house and it seems he has made those same false statements to the f.b.i. it is not about the substance of the case that flynn is being charged. again, it s not the crime, it s the cover-up. we learned that back in
it is a plea to a false statement made to f.b.i. investigators. moreover, the white house made clear that flynn was shown the door because he misrepresented the meeting with vice president pence. so all of that gives them some insulation. so when you look at these indictments from a criminal defense standpoint, as bad as it is to have someone like flynn plead guilty, it can also produce a sense of relief depending on what the indictment says. in the case of paul manafort, his indictment was significantly removed from the trump campaign or the white house. we ll have to wait to see if this is another example of that. bill: think about the time frame here, professor. the conversations happened in late december. the inauguration is on january 20th. the interview of the f.b.i. is four days later. by the 13th of february general