Kiss lea kislyak after the election but before taking office. Flynn says he contacted russianss at the urging of two top officials in the trump transition team. He was part of trumps traveling inner circle from the campaign to the transition and into the early days of the administration. No other no one other than Michael Flynn is named in the indictment. The swift plea means theyre reaches right into the heart of President Trumps inner circle including his soninlaw Jared Kushner. Joining me now, paul butler, and former fbi doubling act. Rosa brooks, former pentagon official and justice security analyst matt. And a wheat in newsweek is out today. Michael flynn lied to the fbi about russia but should have known better. Why should he have known better . Because he spent 30plus years as a member of the intelligence committee. Those that dont know, when youre entrusted with secrets, the code you take is just to tell the truth, and it sounds quaint and might sound simple, but when Michael Flynn was in the room with those investigators he had to know there was a decision he had to make. Either, you know, say i dont recall, i dont recall what happened with kislyak. He chose a quinntive answer. No yes. He said, no. In fact, we know he lied. He decided to lie. The only thing i can draw from that, joy, the only thing i know is that someone who spent 33 years in that community had to have been faced with a position that if he told the truth, the truth would have been far, far worse than the lie. The question here, joy, is, why was he lying . What was he protecting, afraid of telling . Why afraid of telling the truth . Thats the definitive question. Not as if, rosa, wouldnt have been something you could presume if you are Michael Flynn, former head of the defense agency. Not a guy just walking in off the street. A career military man, threestar general. Why not assume your conversations with Sergey Kislyak were being recorded . Denies credulity, someone in that position must know the conversation was being recorded would lie . Your thoughts . You would think so. The one and only time i met mike flynn head of the ddia, hes a smart manr. Asked all kind of smart questions. Presented us with a commemorative coin commemorating our visit and the date on the coin was the wrong date. So maybe that just says it all. I dont know. It is truly bizarre. Right. If you are head of the Defense Intelligence agency you know to a complete certainty that we do monitor the Electronic Communications of foreign diplomats, particularly coming from states considered adversarial to the United States. Its bizarre. I think that if he thought he was going nothing wrong, if he just had a brain fart as we call them, my children call them, then you just say to the fbi, i shouldnt have done that. I screwed up. I really goofed here. I shouldnt have been having those conversations. I think its absolutely right that lying about them to the fbi suggests that there was more going on that was even worse. Yeah. You do what karl rove did in the valerie plame, revise your statements, they are no longer lies. Right. The other extraordinary thing about this in the flynn statement that he put out afterwards. He himself defends himself against the t word. Treason. After 33 years in military service to our country including nearly five years in combat away from my family and my decision to continue to serve the United States, extraordinaire painful to endure these many months of false accusations of, puts in quotes treason and other outrageous acts. To me, extraordinary. For him to invoke treason begs actually more questions . Yes, thats right. Obviously pushing back somewhat against the idea that he colluded with a foreign government, inappropriate contacts with russians, and i think the story that he is trying to tell, you see it somewhat in this statement of offense that mueller released yesterday, everything he did he was directored to do. Get to the question why he lied about these contacts, what we found out yesterday is, he wasnt just lying to cover up for himself. He wasnt just lying to cover up the fact he had these conversations with Sergey Kislyak but lying to cover up the fact a vast number of people inside the transition later inside the white house knew he was doing it. We found out he called down to maralago, talked to deputy, k. T. Mcfarland meeting with other officials including the president presumably, reince priebus, talked to Jared Kushner in one other instance. He wasnt just just lying to say to himself, he was protecting an entire apparatus inside the white house in on this thing. Get to, a little round robin about people with exposure. Start with Jared Kushner. We know Michael Flynn talked to senior transition officials, quote unquote, about his contacts with russia. One of them presumably could be Jared Kushner, and this is from the wall street journal back in november. Jared kushner also happens to be the person who reportedly pushed for the firing of jim comey, investigating all this. How much exposure does Jared Kushner have . The statement of offense contains this narrative of flynn having these conversations with the russian abd, hambassador, h up the phone. Make another call. Calling a Senior Trump Campaign official. Sounds like Jared Kushner. Hes got exposure, again, not so much for substantive offense but for covering it up. If he lied to the fbi about it hes going down. Again, President Trump is famously disloyal. Whos he been super loyal to . Michael flynn. Yeah. He fired the fbi director because the directy wouldnt call off the investigation of Michael Flynn. So flynn knows something. Muellers about to find out exactly what that is. Absolutely. Matt, one person spectacularly disloyal to, Jeff Sessions. Sessions is not out of the woods either. Adam schiff on the House Intelligence Committee regarding Jeff Sessions the attorney general on thursday. I asked the attorney general specifically, did the president of the United States ever take any action that you believed, instructed you to take any action that you believed would hinder the russia investigation . And he declined to answer that question. Intriguing. Matt . Yeah. Look, not answering that question is answering it, right . If the answer was no, you would say no. We have a pretty good idea what happened here. We know hes taken a number of steps to try to impede the russian investigation. The president himself said the reason he fired comey he didnt like the way he handleds russia investigation. Sessions was involved. Signed his oh memo went to the president along with rod rosensteins memo. The question, anything else . We wlook at obstruction of justice we focus on his decision to fire comey but also know in those months between the time that they first got the warning from sally yates in january and when comey was fired may 9th, the president called the director of National Symbol ens director of cia, of the nsa, asked all of those people to interfere, try to stop the russia investigation. Hard to believe he called these officials he barely knew and didnt call the attorney general who super vises the fbi and known, had a close relationship and didnt ask him to inappropriately interfere as well pop those are the kinds of things youll see bob mueller looking tore to prove obstruction of justice. Should we look with a little more prejudice or skepticism at this white house narrative that mike pence was simply lied to and knew nothing . Mike pence was intimately involved . A part of the transition team. Sally yates said Michael Flynn might have a problem, one would presume the Vice President was told that, too. Is mike pence out of the woods here . I dont think anybodys out of the woods. Clearly were likely to see more revelations coming in the weeks ahead of us, weeks and months ahead of us, and flynn tells mueller whatever he knows. I dont think anybody is safe. One other thing i wanted to say about flynn. Its hard to underestimate how betrayed many of the military personnel i speak to feel by flynns behavior. We have hundreds of thousands of enlichsted men and women, remind constantly, you will be fired, prosecuted, if you dont stick straight to the line in terms of avoiding contact with foreign adversaries, in terms of telling the truth and so forth. And then when they see a threestar general like Michael Flynn doing this, its really, its a slap in the face for all of those people who have been abiding by the rules all along. Yeah. And not only skirting the rules in terms of his lobbying, but dealing with autocratic governments, taking cash. Taking money cashing out. Absolutely. Not just money from r. T. To sit with Vladimir Putin at the table. Allegedly taking money from, interests in turkey allegedly. Renditioning, conspiracy theory, trying to take a u. S. Resident and ship them off to turkey . And involving his son. Absolute antithesis of the idea of service. Absolutely. Michael flynns son mike junior not charged with a crime. Exposure pressure that pushed flynn to plead guilty is not clear. Washington post reports flynn junior is not expected to be charged. Ask what that said to you . Why mike flynn jr. Will not be look, this is a sweetheart deal mike flynn has. Matt miller can speak to this. When it comes to these cases, the government has time on their side. Michael flynn does not. Youve heard hell put his house up for sale. These defenses are not incredibly difficult to mound theyre expensive. Thats probably a couple of things on the docket besides he doesnt want to go to jail. His military pension, Michael Flynns pension as well as his son. The litany of charges and conspiracies alleged, the fact its boiled down to one simple charge speaks volumes to what flynn has offered, and look, you know what the risk is exposure, him, his son, livelihood and family. Theres a lot yet to get on the table to negotiate with. And only charged one thing. Like the fbi. Could have gotten him for any number of things. Missing money, taxes, lots of are things to charge. The fact they didnt charge with anything than lying to the fbi and didnt charge his son he knows exactly what it is flynn has to offer. Whatever it was, it was good enough for him to give flynn this sweetheart deal. As for the son, again, when prosecutors want to get you, they dont just go for you. They go for your people, for your family. That makes people change positions. Why now with trump, this is getting personal. This is flynn, also his son and his soninlaw. So we can expect that the president might react differently here than he has to other phases of this investigation. Rosa, we know that donald trump seemed to have a particular interest in protecting mike flynn. It was flynn he asked comey to protect, and then before he fired jim comey. So yes. Flynn seems to be the person in the most jeopardy. Something you says, rosa, about the military community. Could flynn lose his pension over this . He could absolutely. Sorry. Say again . No, no. He absolutely could. Yeah. So its an interesting question about that. I want to go around and ask what you all think could happen in theory if dwonald trump were to try to pardon mike flynn, paul manafort, George Papadopolos or anyone else . Too late to pardon mike flynn. He pardoning him, flynn loses the ability to take the fifth amendment. Cant incriminate himself. He knows what he would testify to and can compel it. Get him out of the guilty plea but not from testifying against the president even if he wanted to. Too late. With respect to manafort and do it there. You happy to would be the red line leading congress to act. Im spenticcal that a Republican House would do it, it could tee that issue up of the president being an absolute lawless president , four square, in front of congress. Same question . Paul manafort. Does it, writing his own article of impeachment, President Trump is. The question, will the Republican Congress have the will . End of the day, its not going to work, because mike flynn, for example, just would be charged with kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap as a state crime in new york. President trump has no power to pardon anybody for a state crime. Either way, theres leverage over mike flynn. Whatever he knows about President Trump will come out. All right. Thank you all. Appreciate it. Stay late to. Up next, moment. Evagen helpn and actually improves memory. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Spread a little love today spread a little love myy way spread a Little Something to remember philadelphia cream cheese. Made with fresh milk and real cream makes your recipes their holiday favourites. The holidays are made with philly. Their holiday favourites. Ive always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. Super poligrip free. It creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. Just a few dabs is clinically proven to seal out more food particles. Try super poligrip free. Im sorry. Im sorry. Im sorry. The level of corruption, the crim na behavior, all of these things going on. Its just unbelievable what weve seen in our country today. Theres an old playground saying, he smelled it, dealt it. Certainly thats the case for former security adviser Michael Flynn. The same Michael Flynn famously led lock her up chants regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 republican convention. Max well waters pleaded after the plea, lock him up, lock him up. Joining me congresswoman Maxine Waters herself. Congresswoman, i want to play one more bite from Michael Flynns quite raucous performance at the Republican National convention when he was far more smug. Here he is. Yes. Yes. Yes. Lock her up if i, a guy who knows this business, if i did 1 10, 1 10 of what she did, i would be in jail today. Congresswoman, can we say he at least has done 1 10 of what Hillary Clinton has done . Let me just say that this administration was warned by obama. Sally yates warned them that he was probably compromised by the russians. Trump paid no attention. Pence paid no attention. They know who he is and what hes all about, and so he has been caught, and mueller has bun what ive always known he would do. Starting to connect the dots and bring them in, and we know that he would like to have immunity, and remember, he kind of asked for it some time ago. This man is guilty of something, and i think its a lot, and i think the president is connected and knows what it is. And you know, congresswoman, you have been out there touting the idea that donald trump should face impeachment. Thats fallen on deaf ears among your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, among republicans. Does this indictment and this guilty plea of Michael Flynn, have you seen it change the attitudes on the other side of the aisle at all . Not yet. But i think its going to be hard for the republicans to continue to be silent and to stand with this president as it unfolds. This is the tip of the iceberg. Theres lots more to come, and i think its going to lead right to not only collusion, obstruction of justice, money laundering, you go it goes on and on and on. We are at a point in time in the United States of america with a president who is involved in all kind of things that would shock people, i do believe, and so i know that ive been calling for impeachment. I know ive been criticized, but i know everything that i have learned about him and his allies, their interests in lifting sanctions, their connection to putin, their connection to the kremlin, i know that we are going to find that this president needs to be impeached. You know, in all seriousness, there have been real questions about Donald Trumps mental state. Not only tony schwartz, person who actually wrote the art of the deal. Bob corker called the white house a daycare center, you tweeted on friday, mr. Trump, theres help for your deteriorating health called admitting guilt and telling the truth. Why do you suppose even with republican background on the record questioning this president s mental stability they havent been willing to actually do anything about it . The Republican Party is in disarray. I dont know that it is a party anymore. First of all, youre absolutely correct. Theyre silent. They arent saying anything. Called him a moron, tillerson did. People questioning his Mental Health and look what they just did with this tax reform bill . Created a 1 trillion deficit when theyre supposed to be the conservatives concerned about our budget, concerned about our expenditures. So i dont know who the republicans are anymore. Theyre simply now tax and spend republicans, theyre simply republicans who are standing behind a president whos taking us to war, whos bullying, whos taunting, whos carrying us right into a war with north korea. I dont know that there is a Republican Party. It is absolutely outrageous. Talk about our tax bill for a second. Just a few of the highlights, if you call them at. Individuals, doubled standards and eliminate personal exemptions, repealin