On Monday, Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel submitted a request to the judge in the case of former national security adviser to the Trump campaign, Michael Flynn. The disgraced Lieutenant General pleaded guilty months ago to lying to the FBI about his involvement with foreign governments in dealings with Trump’s presidential campaign, even while the campaign was in full swing. He also pleaded guilty to failure to register as a foreign agent — a charge that numerous members of the Trump campaign have faced, and the former manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted of.
The joint status report indicates that Flynn’s case is ready for the sentencing phase:
This part is critical, since the penalty that Flynn faces could serve as a guideline for future sentencing, as well as generally setting a tone for what the public can expect from the courts in this unprecedented case.
Flynn’s sentencing will also bring Vice President Mike Pence’s involvement in the affair back to the forefront, since it was questions about what he knew and when that initiated the FBI questioning of Flynn in the first place, after he was dismissed by the Trump administration for “lying” to Pence.
The Vice President, however, was in charge of Trump’s transition team and highly unlikely not to have been directly involved with everything that took place in or around the transfer of power between administrations. Many have speculated that this would lead Mueller’s team to investigate Pence as well, although the Special Counsel has not formally requested an interview in connection with the investigation.
After the “flipping” of Manafort, Mueller’s case has been breezing along at a clip that has made Trump nervous enough to double and even triple his level of tweeting, and impossibly even increased his daily denials. To this day, Trump continues to insist that the entire investigation is “illegal” and should never have begun in the first place.
Featured image via screen capture
