Sentencing memos on Michael Flynn, released last week, gave some valuable information, not only about Flynn's own illegal activities, but also of others as well -- including most significantly "Individual 1," who is clearly president Trump.
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For example: a reporter who had seen the report wrote that: "Flynn admitted in his plea that he spoke to the Russians at the direction of Trump transition team officials." Now, if there is evidence of what they spoke about, and if they spoke about the Russians helping Trump's campaign, especially if there was a quid pro quo about sanctions being lifted --- then that seems enough for conspiracy charges violating the federal election laws.
Much of the 13 page memo was redacted, presumably because it involves investigations that are still ongoing; but the judge got the unredacted version, and this puts the information into the justice system and protects it from attempts by Trump and his sycophntic Acting Attorney General to suppress the information.
Two more important sentencing memos are to be released today: one on Michael Cohen and one on Paul Manafort. These are being eagerly anticipated for what they may contain, as well as indications of the direction the investigation is going. However, depending on how much redacting is done, they may not actually give us much new information.
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For example: a reporter who had seen the report wrote that: "Flynn admitted in his plea that he spoke to the Russians at the direction of Trump transition team officials." Now, if there is evidence of what they spoke about, and if they spoke about the Russians helping Trump's campaign, especially if there was a quid pro quo about sanctions being lifted --- then that seems enough for conspiracy charges violating the federal election laws.
Much of the 13 page memo was redacted, presumably because it involves investigations that are still ongoing; but the judge got the unredacted version, and this puts the information into the justice system and protects it from attempts by Trump and his sycophntic Acting Attorney General to suppress the information.
Two more important sentencing memos are to be released today: one on Michael Cohen and one on Paul Manafort. These are being eagerly anticipated for what they may contain, as well as indications of the direction the investigation is going. However, depending on how much redacting is done, they may not actually give us much new information.
Mueller will presumably have to explain why he revoked Manafort's plea deal, which should reveal a lot about Manafort's double-dealing, appearing to be working with the investigators, while feeding information to Trump's lawyers.
Despite Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani's unreliable prattles to the press and TV, Mueller is not in fact winding this up. There is still a great deal to be done, and I'm more persuaded by those analysts who say it may be in the beginning of the end stages.
But it is heartening to see that Mueller seems to be following the strategy that I first picked up from former Assistant FBI Director Frank Figliuzzi on MSNBC -- that of putting as much as he can into court filings and grand jury testimonies so that he gets it into possession of the court system, so it will be preserved even if Trump does try to fire Mueller.
So today's releases will be combed over in minute detail -- and we may know a lot more tomorrow than we do today.
Ralph
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