wrongdoing. flynn said it himself, he s a liar, one insider told the post. attorneys for trump and his top advisers have privately expressed confidence that flynn does not have any evidence that could implicate the president or his white house team. but they re not taking any chances with michael flynn or what he might tell investigators. joining us now is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney in alabama. thank you for being here. let s start with the strategerie of this, the idea of turning on flynn when the trump team doesn t know what it is he s told mueller. is that wise legal strategy? it seems like a really poor legal strategy, joy. for one thing, it s certainly something that mueller s team was fully prepared for. it s the strategy that the defense uses against every cooperator in virtually every case. and like you say, here it s really dangerous because they don t know exactly what it is that flynn would ultimate testify to or cooperate on. and if, for instance, he s talking ab
political politically untenable. the idea that a president would insulate himself from liability by issuing a pardon, would have to create real political risk. beyond that, though, it s not a very good legal strategy. because, remember, the president can pardon for federal crimes, but not for state crimes. and it looks pretty clearly like we have at least one attorney general in the state of new york who might be prepared to bring charges behind these federal crimes, if that was necessary. certainly in the manafort indictment, we see some indication that there s actually a carve-out of some state-type crimes. so i don t think that this pardon strategy is politically feasible. legally, i don t think it s very successful either. joyce vance, thanks so much for being here. thanks for having me. one thing this show has been watching for in the trump/russia investigation is how in the world trump staffers are going to pay for their lawyers. in october, a lawyer for the president said
to be in place for the out of power party, they are, for now, taking shape for democrats. take you through some of the keys. you mentioned the generic ballot, usually a very good predictor. right now, that s one of the warning signs. here s another one, the nature of midterm elections. these things historically favor the party not in power. these minuses are the losses, the house seats lost by the white house, by the president s party in past midterm elections. it s basically the rule that the white house party loses seats. the question is just how many. keep in mind, the only two exceptions here, really extenuating circumstances. 98, the democrats picked up five seats in bill clinton s second midterm, impeachment was going on. in 2002 bush s republicans picked up seats, a year after 9/11, with the country still in shock. very extraordinary circumstances. otherwise the rule is, the out of power party tends to pick up seats. remember, democrats would need
hard telling the real deal from a knock-off. we ve just come down briefly. we were on our way. you wanted a couple of minutes. i like your tie. okay, that was not the real mikhail gorbachev. it was a renowned impersonator at trump tower who epically pranked donald trump. in 2008, it was sarah palin s turn, the governor of alaska, running for vice president on john mccain s ticket. she got a call from someone she thought was the french president. he flattered her, telling her she would make a good president one day. you know i see you as a president one day too. maybe in eight years. maybe not. that was not the french president but rather a well known comedy duo out of montreal. in 2011 scott walker thought he got a call from the billionaire david coke wanting an update on
elections. the republicans never responded. there are obviously a lot of questions about how much the trump campaign knew about and whether they were complicit in the attack on our election. but what about the rest of the republican party machinery? today, robert mueller s investigation has moved beyond the trump administration, the trump transition, and the trump campaign, and into the republican party. quote, in just the last few weeks, mueller s prosecutors have begun questioning republican national committee staffers about the party digital operation that worked with the trump campaign to target voters in swing states. they are seeking to determine if the joint effort was seeked to the activities of russian trolls and bots aimed at influencing the american electorate. so at a time when the president s lawyers are telling him they expect the mueller investigation to be wrapped up any minute, what are we to make