Flynn’s move suggests break from president
WASHINGTON — The prospect of Michael Flynn’s cooperation with federal prosecutors raises the possibility of new lines of inquiry and potentially valuable evidence in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections, legal experts said.
Lawyers for Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser in February, have stopped sharing information with President Donald Trump’s lawyers about the special counsel’s investigation, two people familiar with the probe have said.
While it’s possible that Flynn’s team made the move independently for strategic reasons, legal experts said it appears likely that he has entered into discussions of some kind with Mueller’s team that have caused his interests to diverge from Trump’s.
“Clearly, Flynn’s making a break from the president, and by doing so he’s signaling that he’s putting his interests first,” said Michael Weinstein, a former Justice Department prosecutor and trial attorney. That may be a bad sign for the president and some of his close associates, Weinstein said. “At a minimum, Flynn could provide testimony. But more importantly, he could provide a road map to Mueller about where to look for more information. It could involve conference rooms, email, locations, individuals who were at meetings and travel records,” he said.
“If he was party to any discussions,” Weinstein said, “he’d likely be able to point investigators toward concrete evidence that would help Mueller put the pieces together.”
Attorneys for Flynn, who served as a senior Trump campaign adviser prior to his stint inside the administration, advised the White House of the decision shortly before Thanksgiving, the two people said.