Good luck today in court to General Michael Flynn. Will be interesting to see what he has to say, despite tremendous pressure being put on him, about Russian Collusion in our great and, obviously, highly successful political campaign. There was no Collusion!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 18, 2018
I'm guessing those wishes for good luck are no longer operative, because it wasn't "interesting" in the way Trump expected:
NOW UNDERWAY: Flynn's sentencing has begun.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Judge Emmet Sullivan -- who was not the judge who accepted Flynn's guilty plea -- says he wants to "focus on some of the issues" before he moves forward.
WHOA. Judge Sullivan says the circumstances of Flynn's FBI interview, as raised by his attorneys last week, "concerned the court."— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Sullivan says they raise "issues that may call into question his guilty plea."
Sullivan asks Flynn if he wishes to challenge the circumstances under which he was interviewed.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Flynn says NO.
Sullivan asks Flynn if he was aware that lying to the FBI was illegal.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
"I was aware," Flynn says.
He is NOT taking Sullivan's offer to withdraw his guilty plea.
Sullivan asks if Flynn is ready to accept responsibility— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
"I am, your honor," Flynn answers forcefully.
Sullivan asks if Flynn would rather postpone the proceedings. He declines the offer.
Sullivan now asks Flynn's attorney if he believes his client was entrapped by the FBI.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
"No, your honor," says the lawyer.
Judge is still probing, asking Flynn's attorneys:— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
"My question is, how is raising those contentions about the circumstances [of the FBI interview] consistent with his acceptance of responsibility?"
Defense Attorney Robert Kelner says Flynn "fully accepts responsibility" and "stands by his guilty plea." He says he included for judge information he "might want to see" for sentencing purposes.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Saying he's "puzzled" by the documents he's seen, Sullivan makes it explicitly clear he was concerned by the circumstances of the FBI interview, but Flynn and his attorneys are *repeatedly* declining the judge's offers to delay or steer the proceeding off course.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
One final time, and still sounding skeptical, Sullivan asks Flynn, "If you want to proceed because you are guilty of this offense..."— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Flynn says he is, and wants to proceed.
Sullivan accepts the plea.
Judge Sullivan has sent Flynn and his attorneys back to their table.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
He says he wants to now go over Flynn's plea agreement and the facts that went into it.
Sullivan describes Flynn's crime as a "very serious offense" -- a high ranking government official lying to the FBI, and doing it "while on the physical premises of the White House."— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Mueller prosecutor Brandon van Grack haltingly tells Sullivan it is a "possibility" that Flynn is still cooperating with the special counsel's office.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Prosecutor Van Grack says Flynn provided "substantial assistance" in the case announced yesterday, involving his work as an unregistered agent of the government of Turkey, and could have been charged in connection with that case.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Judge Sullivan is giving Flynn yet another chance to delay -- now telling him it's his "prerogative" whether to move forward -- because he hasn't necessarily finished offering helpful information to the government that might mitigate a sentence.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Sullivan repeats the phrase "very serious offense" to describe Flynn's crime... "in the West Wing!"— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
"The aggravating circumstances are serious," Sullivan says.
SULLIVAN WARNS FLYNN OF A PRISON SENTENCE:— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
"You were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the National Security Adviser to the president!
"Arguably, this undermines everything this flag over here stands for! Arguably, you sold your country out!"
Sullivan: "I'm not hiding my disgust, my disdain, for this criminal offense."— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Giving Flynn the chance to delay until he's finished cooperating, Sullivan says he "can't promise anything" about the sentence he's about to hand down.
DID FLYNN COMMIT TREASON?— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Sullivan is now asking the special counsel's office whether it ever considered charging Flynn with treason.
Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack struggles to answer, saying it wasn't considered.
Sullivan recesses until 12:30pmET because Flynn has asked for the chance to confer with his lawyers before moving forward...— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
Apologies for the length of that, but on TeeVee this would have taken 30 seconds, because we'd all have seen the lawyer (or the cops) prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the guilt of the defendant. This is how courts work, and it's not the way Trump imagines they work, either. Conspiracy theories and "Q-Anon" function best in ignorance, which is to say I sympathize with this last sentiment, even if the hearing were not "dramatic":
And to put a bit of flesh on those bare narrative bones:I gotta tell you folks, this is pretty good drama.— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) December 18, 2018
It's a shame federal courts have decided the public shouldn't be able to see this on television.
“I cannot recall any incident in which the court accepted a guilty plea in which he was not guilty and I don’t intend to start today,” Sullivan told Flynn, according to MSNBC. “I will inform you, any false answers will get you in more trouble, do you understand?”(Alan Dershowitz is gonna plotz!)
Flynn responded in the affirmative, before Sullivan asked if he wished “to challenge the circumstances under which you were interviewed by the FBI?”
His lawyers have said in recent days that the only reason Flynn lied to the FBI was because he was caught off-guard by the agents. The White House on Tuesday said he was “certainly ambushed” by the FBI.
“No, your honor,” Flynn said. “I was aware that lying to the FBI was a crime.”
Trump fired Flynn for lying to Pence, but now Flynn is not a "rat" and Cohen is? What sense does any of this make, except that Trump is guilty?
It's a shame Dershowitz is as incapable of experiencing shame as Trump is. He might grow from the experience, instead he'll just either double down or look for some other implausible bunch of garbage to fling on FOX or wherever else hasn't dropped him as the Kellyanne Conway of Harvard Law.
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