flynn in the first place. he came to our attention in the early part of january when there were statements made by the vice president in public about interactions that flynn, as the national security adviser, had with the russians. the fbi, he conducted the interview on the 24th. we got a readout on the 25th. we placed a call to flynn and said we re sending a couple guys over. hope you ll talk to them. he said sure. we believe that general flynn was compromised with respect to the russians. it was clear that he was lying. he lied to two fbi agents on the 24th of january in the situation room in a conference room. we felt it was critical that we get this information to the white house. the first thing we did was to explain to mr. mcgahn that the underlying conduct that mr. flynn had engaged in was problematic by itself. are you sure, his parent dishogsy about those communications, and his as a
to withdraw your plea? then he goes after the guy. what is your interpretation today? emmet sullivan is one of the most respected judges around. after the ted stevens case, he said i do want with this kind of government misconduct. but flynn s lawyers played it cute. what is your theory of the case? you always have to have a consistent theory. to flynn decided to cooperate all the way, the government moved forward no prosecution and then they throw the curveball, which is appropriate. but as a curveball on the government misconduct if you want to withdraw the plea come out if you want to continue to be a cooperator. judge sullivan was left with no place to go in a sense and as you said correctly, he offered flynn the opportunity. flynn had to withdraw before the sentencing and i thought flynn should have withdrawn his plea a long time ago. i don t believe he committed a crime and if he did, it was a manufactured crime, and as jim comey said, comey got away with what he pulled on flyn
those defendants was a high-ranking government official who while employed by the president of the united states made false statements on the premises of and in the west wing of the white house. so the judge not at all putting up with flynn s excuse there. flynn, a former director of the defense intelligence agency, knows that lying to the fbi and said in court today he knows lying to the fbi is a criminal felony. and he did in any case. how surprising was the judge s statements and behavior? you were there inside the courtroom. to flynn, who is 59 years old and his family. it really was stunning to them, wolf. i mean, i think they everyone showed up there thinking that michael flynn was going to walk out a free man today. obviously, this was not an easy thing for him to go through. and they certainly were stunned by the words that the judge used, raising the question of whether or not there was treason here. this is not the kind of language they re used to hearing for a decorate
harsh tone this hwhite house ha taken not just toward cohen but paul manafort, rick gates, diminishing their role, diminishing their presence in and around donald trump s orbit. that was clearly not the case today as it related to flynn. still the big question, what makes michael flynn different? glen, do you have any idea? here s what i suspect. michael flynn s defense team has been pretty disciplined. so we haven t been hearing in the news what michael flynn has been saying to special counsel about the president or his close associates or his family. so i don t think i think this may be a miscalculation by president trump kind of propping up flynn because we don t know what flynn may have provided against the president. now, when all of this is disclosed when bob mueller shows his hand, it may turn out that michael flynn may have provided lots and lots of incriminating information about the president
states government, had a very distinguished career. he was no doubt aware of federal law, that you can t lie to federal agents when they are interviewing you, and he didn t need to be advised of that fact. i think for today s purposes, it will be interesting to see whether the judge gives any credence to flynn s somewhat 11th hour attack on the process about how he was hoodwinked into this, how he wasn t advised by counsel, how he wasn t fully informed of the law. i think it s a bit of a high-risk strategy for flynn s lawyers to take this route because it does seem as though he had been on a glide path to maybe no jail time whatsoever. this might change the judge s thinking. we ll have to see. matt miller, does any of this back and forth affect today s outcome inside that courtroom? you know, with any other case, with any other judge you would say probably not. you would say you look at the fact that the the prosecutor has recommended no jail time, the fact that michael flynn has s