A few thoughts on the Michael Flynn plea deal.

General Michael Flynn circa 2012. Defense Intelligence Agency photo. 

I'm a little late to the party on this one but former National Security Adviser and General Michael Flynn has plead guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts he had with Russia during the presidential transition. Critically, the indictment has nothing to do with the election, but instead covers Flynn's actions after it. The plea comes after an indictment from Robert Mueller's special counsel. Flynn has not been sentenced but the general consensus is that he won't serve much time, if any. You can read the indictment below. 

FULL TEXT | Michael Flynn Indictment by Devetta Blount on Scribd

I have a few comments. The most obvious is that Flynn's indictment had nothing to do with the so called Russian interference. Flynn was indicted for lying about talking to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. That's right, it happened after Trump had already been elected. Furthermore it appears that this contact was authorized by the White House.

Also, keep in mind that it is standard procedure for incoming presidential officials to meet with foreign dignitaries. Indeed, it's a critical part of the transition phase. Both the new administration and the foreign governments need to know where the other side is coming from. Those that are trying to make this into a big deal seriously expect new administrations to go into it "blind", which is just absurd. Flynn didn't do anything wrong by talking to ambassador Kislyak.

What Flynn did do wrong is lying to the FBI. Why he did so is a mystery for me. His contacts with Kislyak were cleared by James Comey right before he lied to the FBI, so it makes zero sense for him to do so. My guess is that he just wanted to "muh Russia" scandal to go away and thought he could help things by lying to the FBI, as well as VP Mike Pence and apparently Donald Trump as well. That's the only way his actions make any sense, otherwise this just looks like a colossal screw up by Flynn.

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

 He probably pleaded guilty because he knew he screwed up and just wanted the whole situation to end. Flynn may have some problems but he is a patriot and he does care about his family. The Mueller probe was doing damage to both his country and his family so it's not surprising that he wanted it over.

There was some noise made yesterday that Flynn will testify that he was ordered to talk to Kislyak by Jared Kushner. This also makes little sense because he didn't do anything wrong by doing so. Neither did Kushner by ordering him to talk to Kislyak. Again, it's not a crime to talk to the Russians. That wasn't even true back when they were communists, why would it be true today?

Media coverage of this event has been dreadful, as expected. ABC News reported that that Flynn had been indicted for actions he took during the campaign, not during the transition period. Since that made Trump look like he did something wrong, it caused a panic and even caused the stock market to dip for a bit. They retracted it later but the damage was done.

Indeed, the reporting by ABC was so bad I wonder if it wasn't done on purpose. They knew that this indictment wasn't very important and didn't support the Russia narrative so they had to lie about it to get more attention. It's possible that they were just incompetent instead, but still, that's a huge mistake to make especially since the indictment was very clear about when this happened. And people wonder why trust in the media is at historic lows...

As for the Mueller probe, it looks like it is wrapping up. Flynn was always expected to go down, but most expected it to be for something worse than this. Indeed, even I thought that he had a chance of getting into trouble for his links to Turkey, but that didn't happen. Instead he plead guilty to lying, which was stupid, but had nothing to do with election interference. Considering how much other stuff he was accused of, it has to be a huge disappointment to the enemies of Donald Trump.

Most of the major players in the Mueller drama have already been investigated and either cleared or in Flynn and Manafort's cases, indicted. There really isn't much left to do. The only glaring example of someone not having to answer for anything is Tony Podesta. The Podesta group was knee deep in Manafort's scheme and if Tony doesn't go down with him you know that this was a politically motivated witch hunt. If he does that you know that Muller is a white hat, or at least a grey one.

Still, either way, I don't expect anymore major revelations from the Muller probe and I expect it to be done either by the end of this year or shortly into the next one. Indeed, that's what the White House itself believes the same thing, with Mueller's interviews expected to be done very soon. Far from the silver bullet that takes down Trump, it has proven to be a big nothing burger. Trump's not going down and only a few minor officials have gone down, none of which went down for anything that had to do with the election. I will be very happy when we put this all behind us.