A new trade route to afghanistan that bypasses pakistan by using an iranian port the first phase of the port in iran was inaugurated on sunday it links india to afghanistan and central asia pakistan denies transit access for trade cargo. All right up to date headlines here and out as are coming out right now it is the inside story. Has flipped Donald Trumps former National Security advisor Michael Flynn has fitted fealty to law into the f. B. I. With flynn planning to cooperate with the name in this game of political russian roulette this is inside story. Alone welcome to the program im peter dopy now the president of the United States has been dragged into the investigation looking for answers about suspected russian meddling in last years u. S. Election his former National Security adviser Michael Flynn is guilty hes admitted it he lied but the main question now is how far up the political food chain will Robert Mullers inquiry reach so much to talk about here but first as Fintan Monaghan explains this may yet be a turning point. Was general Michael Flynn was a very visible part of Trumps Campaign for president one of his earliest and closest advisors his job was often to go after Hillary Clinton. Was by her thats right. That chant came back to haunt him on friday. Was his guilty plea will make it that much harder for the white house to downplay the investigation the f. B. I. Now admits is looking into potential coup luzhin between russia and the Trump Campaign which the president has called a witch hunt and i think most of us believe its not a witch on her hoax and the f. B. I. Director and all others believe this is a legitimate concern for their part democrats dismissed the white house assertion that lynn was a minor figure in the Administration Part of this is yourself from one of the most visible of your Campaign Surrogates and your National Security adviser after the news broke on friday reporters were kept out of a planned photo shoot in the oval office of the president a comment on my dont plan to go to serve the president who seems to love to talk and tweet stayed silent. Flynn is the fourth person close to President Trump caught up in the investigation now that we know hes cooperating it seems almost a guarantee he wont be the last. Aljazeera. Ok lets get an idea of whos been wrapped up in this russia investigation so far now as you can see here furthest from trump of his former Campaign Chairman paul metaphor and his business associate rick gates theyre suspected of acting as unregistered agents for the Ukrainian Government they deny the charges and they are currently under indictment neither were formally part of the administration closer to the president says George Papadopoulos who was a Foreign Policy adviser now he pleaded guilty he wasnt forthcoming with the f. B. I. Over contacts that he nurtured with people who were well connected in russia now we have mr flynn hes also guilty of lying to the f. B. I. Here in relation to the Russian Ambassador yack he was close to trump before during and after the campaign the thank you was his job as National Security advisor right in the middle of mr trumps inner circle. Ok there we are lets get going lets bring in our guests theyre all joining us from washington today they are Thomas Pickering formally the u. S. Ambassador to russia and a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution bruce fein a constitutional and International Lawyer and formally the u. S. Associate Deputy Attorney general were also joined by joel rubin president of the Washington Strategy group and a former Deputy Assistant secretary of state welcome to you all can i ask you all basically the same question Thomas Pickering first lets just all put our cards on the table here in your mind are we talking about a conversation collusion or something criminal. Let me say just at the beginning all the anti trumpeters hope that were talking about something that is really i think seminal here. And theyve reduced a number of reasons for that including the questions that are unknown why in fact was this material protected so much why are they hung on for so long in denying it why are the trump forces making it as clear as they possibly can that this is an isolated instance an instant a one time event i think its beyond that clearly and here i put a lot of faith in the way muller is operating rooms will give you i think a much more clear insider view of the way in fact these legal questions work but we all have been inundated in the last eight to ten hours by the information in terms of how significant this is how much of a hold of molar has over flynn and hopefully for everybody how much flynn will be singing at the right time before the right sort of people to move this ahead the second question is really the arrow pointed inclusion or and his role in it and in many ways thats the lead in to the president and all those who would hope that the president would be gone soon see that is sort of the the bright spot on the horizon beyond that there are a lot of unknowns and im not going to speculate on those understood bruce fein why do you think the hung on so long to quote Thomas Pickering that i think theyll be hiding in on as long as they can just like Richard Nixon did when he was under assault because that they were have a complete sunshine and probably every zoltan more criminal convictions than we can anticipate today i remember if you have nothing to hide a government in the sunshine is what gives confidence the American People and the congress that theres nothing askew and they have done the opposite as being a government in the sunshine and remember we have not only the situation with the police here but that comes on the heels of mr trump. Effort to get then the f. B. I. Director mr call me to back away from investigating mr flynt at all and we have mr trump also approaching the Congressional Oversight Committee and saying cant you bring this to an end early well whats there to be worried about if theres no collusion theres nothing to be embarrassed about if youre trying to shut down all these investigations or suggest you have something to hide and i would want to edit and strengthen what thomas said about the arrow being pointed at the president you notice that the plea was made to violation of the law that makes it a crime to lie to the f. B. I. Even if youre not under oath well its inconceivable to me that at some point in the investigation mr molder is not going to ask to inquire of mr trump what he knew and when did he know it there have been instances in the past where president s have been asked questions in criminal investigations and it doesnt even need to be under oath and what this signal sends with regard to the plea agreement and if you lie even if its not a material fact to the f. B. I. Or the investigator you could be prosecuted and i think that would place mr trump in a very very awkward position because at present he is the one person who has not been crossexamined hes been totally able to just speak his peace and then hide if you will bind this press secretary and i think this signal from the plea of mr flynn indicate that theres going to be further investigation of mr trump himself ok jill ruben im going to assume because we need shorthand short circuit through some of the debate here im going to assume here you think the arrow is also pointing. For his pivotal relationship with the russians and in part the israelis because that was parts of the story the back story going back to the beginning of the Trump Presidency but in your mind whats the count cumulation that Robert Muller has made because the potential terrorists that flynn may have been facing has gone from Something Like potentially sixty is to maybe even not six month. Yes. Peter yes i do agree with the tone of our discussion and we have a saying here in the United States where theres smoke theres fire and right now with the Michael Flynn police deal where he accepts that he is hes committed criminal acts and that he did those while he was about to become the american National Security adviser he is essentially laying the first embers for that fire and the question now is how big will it get and mr moeller is strategic in clearly understands how to play this game there were no leaks at all about the deal with flynn and how he was going to admit guilt and muller is three steps ahead of everybody else on this investigation and could in the congress so right now Congress Asking questions keeping the pressure on finding misstatements by jerry cushion or where he seems to say that he did not have any connections to wiki leaks and to russia and then there are emails from him that he forwarded about wiki leaks other Campaign Staffers so i think that the team in the white house has to be very concerned because they dont really know where muller is going but clearly hes laying the groundwork for escalating this into a very much of potentially an inferno for the white house Thomas Pickering who is Michael Steele and there have been rumors for a long long time i mean one remembers back in twenty fifteen he went to moscow it was a trip paid for we are told its been reported by russia today the state run Russian International english language news channel i mean that twenty fifteen as it is not within the scope of what was to mull is investigating but why is it Michael Flynn never thought to himself this is wrong peter let me just say one thing is beginning because the smoke is fire pointed joe made i think is important theres another saying. On washington that people always make the mistake of lying about some particular action in government and its the lying that gets them its the lying that always catches you up its the lying thats truly stupid flynn is a former us military officer i knew him first and the only time i met him was in kabul when he was working for David Petraeus as his intelligence chief and he was an excellent briefer and right on the point he later then morphed into the head of the Defense Intelligence agency where he ran afoul of the Obama Administration mainly because of quite wild views on middle east problems which they were not prepared to accept and he was fired he then went into some kinds of private Business Enterprises attached himself to the Trump Campaign got engaged as you said with argentina and moscow sadness and president putin excepted some money from the turks maybe from some other people failed to put that down on his disclosure forms for his clearance lied to the f. B. I. Otherwise a perfectly splendid person ok lets throw that point to bruce fein i mean just picking up an idea that he was a bit wild when he was in afghanistan when he was in the middle east his p. R. People that were on the p. R. People one remembers as well the reports saying that they had a problem with him because he was a bit of a wild card and he would he would fold ideas into the speeches or the briefings that he was given that his p. R. People didnt like about the conversation that he had with kissel yet speculate forest crucifying what was the conversation that he had what did he want to get out of it and at what point did he take it into illegality. I think as you indicated at the outset and hes testified to he was not acting as a lone ranger here he was acting at the direction of higher ups in the white house and i think thats clearly means mr trump maybe through mr questioner otherwise remember mr questioner is thirty six years old a complete amateur he wouldnt do anything serious unless he got approval from the present in the United States mr trump his father in law and mr and mr flynn was trying to exhort the russians to display some kind of. I would say amicability in declining to retaliate against mr obamas expulsion of several russian probably spies and shutting down some of their campuses here to show that trump had some particular relationship to mr putin that was helpful to the United States and showed that he really wasnt in a Foreign Policy amateur he knew the art of the deal so he had raised the issue with well you know you really can you hold off on an retaliating against what obama has done to some of your diplomats and then he also was lobbying for the soviet the russians here at the Security Council to veto a resolution that would been introduced by the egyptians that was hostile to israel because the Obama Administration was going to do i think abstain so those are the things that he lied about when he was asked by the f. B. I. Whether that was the content of the conversations he had with the Russian Ambassador said no i didnt discuss any sanctions whatsoever and he discussed nothing with regard to the Security Council resolutions and i think thomas is actually right on when he says that its meant its anomaly the lying its the obstruction of justice its the cover up that regularly has proven the downfall of president s even though they were implicated in the chief crime that was true with regard to nixon to some extent with clinton as well when theyre trying to conceal facts and thats an easier case to prove than oftentimes the original crime culture we have a crime here example to say thats what were seeing in this. That is correct ok one more point still ruben joel is. Being ferociously clever because hes kind of legally nibbling away at the edges manifold gates papadopoulos so he may the force twenty sixteen the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has an email exchange with Papadopoulos Papadopoulos response to that poster to flee the russians respond to that positively and then papadopoulos in an email and this is established fact this is not anything illegal that im saying sitting in doha papadopoulos then says oh ive got to refer that to a big that big is general yes or no well i think what muller is doing shes building the ground for a case and hes in a sense is we see this in cases going after mob bosses where theyll go after the underlings first before they go to the top and get the kingpin and what were watching here it is exposure of family members as well which is unique and its important to mention that with Michael Flynn his son whos very much culpable in much of these efforts was excluded from the the the charges yesterday his son was promoting here in washington what we called pizza gate back at the end of last year after the election during this to motorists transition period of conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and creating a foam and violent atmosphere where someone from North Carolina in the United States drove up to washington d. C. With a gun and shot a pizza parlor that was targeted by these conspiracy theories so theres a lot going on here behind the scenes clearly flynn has protected his son and clearly mullers putting pressure on every base connection to the kingpin not wishing to put words into anyones mouth during a debate that you and point peter peter yes kerry obrien is important point on the way Muller Muller is operating. He quickly it was a wonderful sucker punch you produce man a fort the president got on the tube right away and said thats it nothing more theres nothing else in the involved here and theres no real stuff and then an hour later papadopoulos comes forward as a new cooperator now hes got flynn is a cooperator in the white house is saying it all ends this is it flynn is the man hes the one who made all the mistakes theres nothing there and we now see clearly they are already pointing to cushion or and so look i think particularly that cushion or is the next sucker punch particular question that i think mohler will pull as he moves up and joels entirely right you start low and you work your way up and each one looks better than the other and each one knows more than the other and thats how in fact youll get to the top ok this central investigation is about the russian influence or not of your recent election the list of people who may have been influenced and influencing is huge i had to write it done