What does Flynn know that he will tell Mueller? Who will be hurt by it?

Michael Flynn appeared before a judge Friday and pled guilty of lying to the FBI, as part of a plea bargain with Mueller's investigation.   He is now a cooperating witness.   The following article by David Ignatius, of the Washington Post lays it out.

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"It’s a truism of Washington scandals that it’s not the initial actions that lead to legal disaster, but the attempt to cover them up. It’s possible that is the case with Friday’s indictment of former national security adviser Michael Flynn . . . . But there is much we still do not know. . . . 

"Flynn’s catastrophic mistake was that he lied about the Dec. 29 calls, first in denials to Trump spokesmen that were shared with me and other reporters on Jan. 12, then to Vice President Pence and, most important, to FBI officials who interviewed him on Jan. 24. The indictment specified that Flynn made 'false, fictitious and fraudulent statements' when he told FBI agents he hadn’t urged Kislyak 'to refrain from escalating the situation in response to sanctions that the United States had imposed against Russia that same day.'

"Why was Flynn lying about the Kislyak calls? What was he covering up? We have one hint in the 'Statement of the Offense' that accompanies the plea agreement. The prosecutors say that Flynn cleared his comments to Kislyak beforehand with an unnamed official who is described as 'a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team' who was staying with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Only then, with top-level approval to discuss sanctions, did Flynn call the Russian ambassador.

"Say what you like about Flynn, but an ex-general follows the chain of command. Given his seniority as the designated national security adviser, there are only two people who would likely have authorized this contact with Russia: Jared Kushner . . . and the president-elect himself, who had said throughout the campaign that he wanted to improve relations with Russia.

"The public lies about the Dec. 29 call began to cascade. But the most senior levels of the Trump transition team were aware, from the first, what really happened. Their silence condoned the lies. Given that Trump publicly thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 30 for not retaliating, it has always been hard to believe that Trump wasn’t aware of the Flynn-Kislyak discussions. Now we’ll know the truth. . . . 

"And then, as happens in a coverup, the lies began to get twisted. Flynn resigned under pressure on Feb. 13, following The Post’s disclosure that he had, indeed, discussed sanctions. The next day, Trump met privately with then-FBI Director James B. Comey. According to a memo Comey wrote afterward, Trump said: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”

"This attempt to curb prosecution of Flynn was part of the chain of events that led to Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. This part of the circle closed Friday, as Mueller obtained a guilty plea from the man Trump had sought to protect from investigation.

"At the center of this story is a mystery that will propel the rest of the inquiry: What was Trump so worried about that it made him deny contacts with Russia and denounce attempts to investigate those contacts? What was he afraid might emerge? . . . Week by week, more pieces of this puzzle emerge."

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Numerous news outlets are now reporting that sources say that Jared Kushner was the "senior official" who actually instructed Flynn to call the ambassador.  But, here's the interesting thing that's coming out.   It may not have been as much about the Russian meddling and sanctions as about another issue.

 In December 2016, the United Nations was nearing a vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.   The Obama administration, in its final months, had decided not to follow U.S. tradition in protecting Israel from U.N. votes of disapproval.   It would not veto the resolution but rather abstain.

Trump had publicly urged Obama to veto the resolution;  and, we now know that behind the scenes the Trump team had been part of a campaign to get other countries to delay the vote until after Trump took office.

BuzzFeed has reported that a member of the Trump Transition Team was in the room at the time Kushner called Flynn and said:  "You need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote."  Multiple other news sources are reporting the same thing:  that it was Kushner who gave Flynn the order to make the calls.

Flynn may also have discussed the Russian sanctions, possibly even as part of a quid pro quo.   But investigators now will be looking to see whether Flynn also made calls to other UN Security Council members about the Israel vote.  As the McClatchey news service put it:

"The disclosure provided concrete evidence that Trump's transition team twice sought secretly to undermine U.S. foreign policy decisions of President Barack Obama, even influencing Russia's response to sanctions Obama imposed in retaliation for the Kremlin's attempt to tilt the election to Trump."

Just to be entirely clear:   They took these actions while Obama was still the president.  What they did is illegal.  Now we also know that Trump himself met with the president of Egypt, who then used his position to delay the vote in the Security Council.

So what does this mean for Kushner?    The Logan Act makes it a crime for private citizens to negotiate with a foreign country to undermine the foreign policy of the U.S. government.  Kushner and the whole Trump team were private citizens at that point.  And it may be more than just Russia, if Flynn actually did call all the Security Council members about the Israel vote.

This also might explain Kushner's recent, brief meeting (under an hour) with Mueller's investigators.   Perhaps he was being questioned about this conversation before it came out as public knowledge that Flynn was now a cooperating witness.

But, seriously, does anyone doubt that Trump himself was in on the decisions about both issues?   Was Kushner going rogue without mentioning it to his father-in-law and boss?   I'm betting that it was Trump's decision;   Kushner just made the call to Flynn.  Maybe that's what Mueller wanted to ask Jared.

Stay tuned.

Ralph