The Mueller investigation was supposed to turn up evidence of collusion. Instead it's charged Trump associates with a variety of crimes. None of them dealing with the actual purpose of the investigation.
The Flynn plea is the worst of the lot. He's pleading guilty not to committing a crime, but to "lying to the FBI."
That's not how you the Feds have a case. That's how you know they don't. The MO is if you can't find a crime to charge them with, find something contradictory in their testimony and nail them on that.
It's a noted abuse of power. Here's Andrew McCarthy.
The false-statement charge, brought under Section 1001 of the federal penal code, stems from Flynn’s conversation on December 29, 2016, with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak. At the time, Flynn was slated to become the national-security adviser to President-elect Donald Trump...
Obviously, it was wrong of Flynn to give the FBI false information; he could, after all, have simply refused to speak with the agents in the first place. That said, as I argued early this year, it remains unclear why the Obama Justice Department chose to investigate Flynn. There was nothing wrong with the incoming national-security adviser’s having meetings with foreign counterparts or discussing such matters as the sanctions in those meetings. Plus, if the FBI had FISA recordings of Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak, there was no need to ask Flynn what the conversations entailed.
Flynn, an early backer of Donald Trump and a fierce critic of Obama’s national-security policies, was generally despised by Obama administration officials. Hence, there has always been cynical suspicion that the decision to interview him was driven by the expectation that he would provide the FBI with an account inconsistent with the recorded conversation — i.e., that Flynn was being set up for prosecution on a process crime.
Or entrapment.
A breaking report from ABC News indicates that Flynn is prepared to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians — initially to lay the groundwork for mutual efforts against ISIS in Syria. That, however, is exactly the sort of thing the incoming national-security adviser is supposed to do in a transition phase between administrations. If it were part of the basis for a “collusion” case arising out of Russia’s election meddling, then Flynn would not be pleading guilty to a process crime — he’d be pleading guilty to an espionage conspiracy.
Meanwhile, according to BuzzFeed, Flynn made one of those calls at the behest of Kushner, in support of Israel.
WASHINGTON – Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, called Michael Flynn in December 2016 and told him to call members of the UN Security Council in an effort to stop a vote on a resolution critical of Israeli settlement policy, according to a person who was present in the room when Flynn took the call.
Flynn then called Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States to seek his assistance, and later lied to the FBI about having done so, according to documents filed in federal court Friday by special counsel Robert Mueller that explained Flynn’s guilty plea on two counts of lying to federal agents.
The documents do not say on whose behalf Flynn contacted Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, identifying the person only as “a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team.”
But a Trump transition official who was in the room where Flynn took a call regarding the upcoming UN Security Council vote said Flynn identified the caller as Kushner.
“Jared called Flynn and told him you need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote,” the person said.
Despite the media spin, these were calls to every member of the UN Security Council.
Fighting ISIS and supporting allies was part of Flynn's job. There's nothing illegal here. Flynn is being charged with doing his job. But Obama Inc. did not want him doing his job.
The source says Flynn took the call at the Trump transition team’s offices in the General Services Administration headquarters in northwest Washington. After hanging up, Flynn told the entire room that they’d have to start pushing to lobby against the UN vote, saying “the president wants this done ASAP.”
At the time, the Security Council resolution was the subject of bitter debate among the Obama administration, the incoming Trump team, and Israeli officials. The resolution condemned Israeli housing construction in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank as a “flagrant violation under international law” that was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of a future peace settlement establishing a Palestinian state.
The United States traditionally had vetoed similar resolutions, but the Obama administration had said it was likely to abstain, which it ultimately did, allowing the resolution to pass.
Trump, at the prodding of Israeli officials, lobbied hard against the abstention, then denounced it after it took place.
So Flynn (and other Trump officials) were being spied on by Obama officials who opposed the policies of the incoming administration. And have now used that illegal spying to go after a public official for engaging in these policies, which, in and of themselves, were perfectly legal.
These are blatant abuses of power and they need to end.
Mueller must go.
If President Trump fails to do so, this investigation will consume his administration. The witch hunt will keep going. Every Mueller target will be charged with something. Because a Federal prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. And Sessions is certainly not immune from the same attack that Flynn fell to considering that he failed to remember a brief chat with the Russian ambassador.
It's time to end the chaos. And the only way to do that is to fire Mueller.