In May, former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed by the US Department of Justice to a special counsel. The goal was to discover if there are any illegal connections between the Russian government and the 2016 presidential election. Seven months later, a number of people have been arrested and/or pleaded guilty, including the following: Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos and, most recently, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
On December 1, Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to “willfully and knowingly” making “false, fictitious and fraudulent statements” to the FBI, according to the New York Post. He has been charged with failing to register as a foreign agent, money laundering and kidnapping. Flynn agreed to cooperate with the special counsel, which means he could have been wearing a wire.
Trump’s tweets, issued shortly after the news broke out, escalated the situation. His Saturday tweet reads, “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI”. If this statement were true, it proves that Donald Trump was aware of Flynn’s false statements. In an earlier Senate hearing, former FBI director James Comey stated that Trump asked him to withdraw investigations against Flynn. In this case, if both statements are true, it could be a potential evidence of obstruction of justice by Trump. Soon after the tweet, however, Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, told CNN he was the one that wrote and published the tweet stating Trump knew about Flynn lying.
However, Trump did not agree with the statement by Comey. “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!” he tweeted on December 2.
Later, Trump tweeted “So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous BFI holiday ‘interrogation’ with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times… and nothing happens to her?” as an effort to redirect attention to allegations against Hillary Clinton.
In the end, the question for many is what does this mean to the Trump presidency? Though Flynn was heavily involved both during and after the presidential campaign, no charge against the president has been publicly announced. However, if Comey’s statements were true and Trump did try to stop an investigation against Flynn knowing Flynn is guilty, obstruction charged could be pressed against Trump.
