The Straightforward Explanation Of How Flynn's Guilty Plea "Imperils" The Trump Presidency
2 December 2017, 09:59
It's been a catastrophic week for the Trump administration, a former US campaign adviser says.
Donald Trump has had a "catastrophic" week in office after retweeting extremist group Britain First, entering a diplomatic row with Theresa May and seeing his former National Security Adviser plead guilty as part of Robert Mueller's Russia probe, a former American campaign adviser has said.
Dr Brian Klaas explained to Andrew Castle the extent of the damage to the American president after a torrid week.
It culminated in Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI when questioned about the Trump campaign's connections to the Kremlin.
He said Flynn's guilty plea to one of a multitude of charges likely indicated he was cooperating as a witness against Donald Trump: "It puts to rest any possible myth that any aspect of this investigation is, as Trump would say, fake news."
1/ First, it's important to understand that Mueller has entered into a plea deal with Flynn in which Flynn pleads guilty to far less than the available evidence suggests he could be charged with. This indicates that he has cut a deal with Mueller to cooperate in the Russia probe.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 1, 2017
8/ What this indicates—beyond any serious doubt—is the following: Special Counsel Bob Mueller, the former Director of the FBI, believes Mike Flynn's testimony will *incriminate* the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, or both of these two men.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 1, 2017
Dr Klaas described a "huge morass of behaviour that is unethical and much of it illegal."
He said: "He admitted to lying about the fact that he had secret communications with the Russians, during the transition, relating to sanctions.
"This might be very important because it might be a quid pro quo, it's alleged.
"The allegation is that in response to helping Trump win the election, sanction relief would be provided, and Flynn did talk to the Russians about sanctions and lied to the FBI about it.
"Then Trump's Acting Attorney General, Sally, Yates, warned Trump about this. He fired her.
"Then after that he asked Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn and then he fired Comey and admitted on national television that he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation.
"The level of communications between the Trump team and the Russians at this stage is extremely unusual, and the fact they all lied about it, not just publicly but to FBI investigators, really is a problem.
"But we also know that they set up a meeting in Trump Tower last summer, in which they were offered high level sensitive dirt on Hillary Clinton and Trump Jr responded to this email, we have the emails now, by saying: 'I love it, when can we set up the meeting?'
"Three hours after the meeting was confirmed, Donald Trump himself promised new damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"These timelines are not coincidences."
Watch the must-see explanation at the top of this page.
