It had been obvious for some time that if former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn turned state’s evidence in the Russia investigation, Donald Trump would be in a lot of trouble. Anyone who doubts this needs to read the plea agreement in which Flynn admitted lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians. As part of the agreement, Flynn not only agreed to cooperate with the investigation, but is prepared to testify that he reached out to Russians on orders from Trump himself.
For much of Friday, it looked like fans of Fox News Channel may not have been fully aware of just how explosive this development really was. The fair and balanced network’s Website relegated the plea announcement to the left side of the page, while devoting a splash page to the tarmac meeting between Loretta Lynch and the Clintons. On air, a number of commentators tried to pin Flynn’s crimes on Barack Obama–forgetting that Obama actually warned Trump not to tap Flynn.
But there are at least two people on Fox News who do understand that Flynn just gave Trump a lot of reasons to be very afraid. One of them is senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano. While Napolitano once claimed that Trump promised him a Supreme Court seat, he has been one of the few on Fox News who is under no delusions about how much hurt Mueller can inflict on Trump.
Friday was no different. Just after news of Flynn’s flip broke, Napolitano told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney that Flynn got the deal of a lifetime. Watch here.
Napolitano noted that Flynn faced a maximum of 60 years in prison if convicted of all the crimes for which he could have been potentially indicted–effectively a life sentence. However, his plea agreement calls for a sentence of six to 12 months. In an understatement, Napolitano said such a steep drop in sentencing range “doesn’t come easily, and doesn’t come for free.”
After Flynn formally pleaded guilty, Napolitano called into “Happening Now” to discuss the implications of the plea. Watch here.
Napolitano said that Flynn’s flip is “a nightmare” for Trump, since Flynn was Trump’s closest confidant on foreign policy and national security or almost two years. Additionally, it keeps the Russia probe in the news just as Trump was trying to pivot to tax reform. Napolitano believes that Flynn could potentially lead Mueller to others who may have been involved in wrongdoing–if only to keep the government from having to put a man on the stand who has admitted lying to the FBI.
Napolitano went further that afternoon when he chatted with Shepard Smith. Watch here.
Napolitano believes that Mueller has already amassed enough evidence to indict Trump–meaning we could be on the verge of a “constitutional crisis.” Mueller could indict Trump himself–something which has never occurred before, even though there doesn’t appear to be any legal or constitutional barrier to indicting a sitting president. Or he could simply hand his findings to the House of Representatives, who would be under “tremendous political pressure” to begin impeachment proceedings. As Napolitano sees it, Flynn will not only lead Mueller to other potential players, as well as to documents.
Smith then recalled that Harry Litman of The New York Times believes that if Flynn does indeed testify that he put out feelers to the Russians during the campaign, it would almost certainly be an impeachable offense. This would be in addition to the prospect that Trump’s attempt to strongarm the FBI into backing off Flynn amounts to obstruction of justice. Litman believed that if that were to be the case, it would turn the Russia probe into “a political scandal” dwarfing Watergate and Iran-Contra–one in which Trump and his minions were conducting “rogue foreign policy.”
Napolitano believed that if this happened during the campaign, then there is no doubt that it would have been “a very serious criminal offense,” and likely an impeachable offense. If it happened after the election, his potential interference with Obama’s foreign policy could be impeachable, though it would not be as clear-cut as it would have been had it happened during the campaign. Additionally, Napolitano believes that Trump should really be concerned about Flynn directly contradicting Trump’s repeated denial that he had anything to do with Russia, and doing so “in a credible way.”
That set Smith off.
“The crux of all of this, as we have discussed here repeatedly, and specifically about five months ago–why all the lies? Why, now we know, lies from Flynn, why the lies from Manafort, why the lies from Papadopoulos? Why lie after lie after lie after lie? What is motivating you to lie? And it appears that is at the heart of whatever this is.”
Flynn’s guilty plea strongly suggests why–to cover up a major-party campaign’s effort to collude with a hostile foreign government in order to influence the election. If that’s prove to be the case, then Trump is finished.
(featured image courtesy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)
