Neither mundane or pointless.
There have been so many false starts and dead ends in this administration though. Who is to say this isn’t just another.
You left out the best part of the article:
“In September, criticizing Hillary Clinton over former aides being given immunity deals as part of an investigation into her private email server, Flynn said, “When you’re given immunity that means you’ve probably committed a crime.””
Las Vegas odds:
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1-1 He’s getting a huge payoff from Trump to throw himself under the bus, without any jail time.
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3-2 He’s getting a huge payoff from Trump to make up shit to divert and muddle the investigation
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2-1 He wants to eliminate the possibility of prosecution for himself, but after getting immunity, he will only testify to things already known.
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1000-1 He will actually testify to new, true, and damaging information about Trump.
The only reason to grant immunity is to get evidence against someone higher. In this context, the only someone higher is Trump. He’s not going to turn on Trump.
… or maybe his crimes, whatever they are, have nothing to do with Trump?
Anyway, it is both refreshing and amusing to see someone on the left side who is a bit realistic in his expectations. After dozens of times of watching the Fitzmas-like delusions and “24 business hours” fun, it gets tiring.
No chance of that, although there’s a good chance that Trump was an unwitting dupe, rather than the instigator.
Do you really think you’re a position to be running a victory lap right now? This administration is just under ten weeks old and it’s falling apart. If anything I think most of us who predicted Trump’s collapse are stunned by how quickly it’s happening.
Prosecutors aren’t stupid. They don’t offer a blank check. They only offer immunity if they already know what’s going to be given for it. And if somebody tries to play games afterwards, the immunity can be withdrawn.
I’m not counting on this to be the silver bullet to bring down the Trump administration, but why do you say that Flynn’s not going to turn on Trump? Is he that devoted to Trump that he’d be willing to take the fall for him? Or are there any known instances of people being paid off by Trump to not talk? Trump seems to just think that people should support him because he’s the best, and just dismisses people who don’t support him as losers and haters on Twitter and in his speeches.
Also I would think if Flynn’s seeking immunity, that means he knows stuff and is willing to say it. If he was going to willingly be a scapegoat, whether because of loyalty or money, he’d just not say anything about getting immunity.
The article doesn’t say prosecutors offered Flynn immunity; it says he asked for it. I haven’t seen enough of Flynn to know whether he is stupid, but if Trump is behind this, then stupidity could very well be in play.
Going off on a tangent, when I was growing up, it would have been unthinkable that a 3-star general, or a CEO, or a high-ranking government official could be stupid. Corrupt, yes. Bigoted, yes. But stupid, no.
But since I began following the news closely, which coincidentally was about the time W. was elected, it has become obvious that high office, and even high achievement, is no guarantee that someone isn’t a moron, at least in some areas.
Why would he not? If he’s going to willingly be a scapegoat, he can do it and go to jail, or do it and not go to jail. Which would you prefer? Wouldn’t it at least be worth a try to go for immunity, even if he planned to take the fall whether or not he got it?
So you think he’s trying for immunity, but then when he’s asked what info he can trade for immunity, he’ll talk about something innocuous or just make something up? Or do you think he’ll try to roll on someone other than Trump?
No way of knowing. As I said, I don’t know how stupid he is. For all I know, this might be a Rovian trick where he demands immunity just to make sure that everybody can’t wait to hear what juicy dirt he has, and then testifies to something plausible and extremely damaging to Trump. And then he disappears, leading to lurid headlines (he actually flees to Istanbul with 50 million dollars). And then his testimony turns out to be provably false, thus immunizing Trump from further accusations.
I just think it’s way too soon in the process for him to come out like this, unless he’s being paid to do so. He is obviously greedy, or he wouldn’t be working for foreign governments when he already has a lucrative career without them. He could have made six figures just doing occasional Fox News appearances, never mind his consulting business.
Another possibility is that the fix is in, and his buddy Jeff Sessions will instruct someone in the FBI or Justice to grant him immunity in such a way that Flynn can save himself, without doing much harm to anyone else. Sessions may have recused himself from the Russia inquiry, but he hasn’t recused himself from rewarding young go-getters with a big promotion a couple years down the road.
They should just subpoena him and force him to take the fifth on every question in front of the tv cameras, then charge him under the Logan act with the evidence they already have.
Once charged they can offer him a deal if he squeals on Il Douche
The argument isn’t whether Flynn and/or Trump are stupid; it’s whether the prosecutors are. The scenarios you outlined as probable would all require the prosecutors to be extremely stupid.
FFS, this isn’t GQ, or even Great Debates. The only scenarios I outlined as probable, assuming you are talking about my “Vegas odds” (which even Stevie Wonder can see is a joke), said nothing about whether Flynn’s offer would even be considered, let alone accepted, and so have nothing to do with prosecutor intelligence. The others are variously described as “1000-1,” “for all I know,” and “another possibility,” none of which implies that I think they are probable.
Or another possibility which - despite being the most straightforward one - doesn’t seem to have been raised in this thread (unless I’ve missed something).
The fact is that many many laws - particularly those relating to public corruption - have enormous ambiguity to them, and prosecutors have tremendous discretion to go after people they’re out to get. In recent years we’ve seen multiple instances of politicians being prosecuted - and convicted - by aggressive prosecutors, only to have those convictions overturned by appeals courts on the grounds that the legal interpretations used by the prosecutors were invalid (e.g. DeLay, McDonnell) or other prosecutorial misconduct (e.g. Stevens).
Not to mention the possibility of charging someone based on a shaky circumstantial case (e.g. the recent police prosecutions).
So a guy like Flynn might think of himself as being in the clear, but he’s been engaging in some shady activity, and it’s certainly possible that some of what he’s done or might possibly have done could be interpreted as a crime. And with the overheated atmosphere these days he’s certainly at risk of that happening, whether by political opponents somewhere, or by people on his own side trying to distance themselves.
But he has something to offer. There’s an enormous amount of interest in what he has to say, whether it would lead to prosecution of someone else or simply result in clarifying the situation. So it’s worth a shot. He has something to offer. Perhaps he can trade it in for immunity. Perhaps not. Worth a shot.
How can you trust someone like this? He’d aligned himself with a known liar, he benefited monetarily from “the bad guys,” and now he wants to protect his ass. What’s he got to lose? If they don’t grant immunity and subpoena him anyway, he can plead the fifth, and without solid evidence, he walks, right?
My years in the Navy convinced me that it’s not necessarily the cream that rises to the top ranks - sometimes it’s the ass-kissers. I personally knew a 3-star who was an amazing man and a 2-star who was a total waste of protoplasm. Kinda like in any bureaucracy, right? So just because this guy was a big-shot general doesn’t give him any special credibility in my eyes. And asking for immunity further convinces me that he’s not to be trusted.
But what do I know? I never studied law.
Things are going faster than I thought just a few weeks ago. I think he wants to be the first to ask for immunity, since the first guy gets the best deal. Of course he won’t get it unless it leads to a bigger fish, and it seems there is only one fish bigger than he. So my dreams of prison time for The Donald are still alive.
For the life of me, I can’t imagine Trump not pardoning himself.