Things just took a particularly ugly turn for Michael Flynn

| 11:00 pm EDT July 23, 2019
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Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was facing as little as zero months in prison, if he were simply willing to complete his cooperation deal. All he really had to do was to testify against his former business partner Bijan Kian and call it a day. But Flynn recently hired a new lawyer whose reputation is built around anti-FBI conspiracy theories, and things have gone downhill for him since then. Today, things took a particularly ugly turn for Flynn.

Earlier this month the Feds revealed that they were no longer planning to use Michael Flynn as a witness in the trial against Bijan Kian, because Flynn had changed his story, and they were no longer convinced he would be a credible witness. Flynn’s only real hope of gaining any leverage would have been if the government’s trial against Kian went poorly, to the point that the Feds ended up deciding they needed to bring Flynn in to testify as a Hail Mary after all. For a minute this looked like it might have been a realistic prospect, as the judge had openly expressed skepticism about how much of a case the government had without Flynn’s testimony.

But that went out the window today when a jury convicted Kian after all. The judge still doesn’t sound thrilled about the verdict, according to the New York Times. But the reality is that the government managed to land a conviction without Michael Flynn’s help. That means his plea deal is officially down the toilet.

Judge Emmet Sullivan has already expressed frustration at the leniency of Michael Flynn’s plea deal. Now that he’s changed his story and become useless as a witness against Kian, and the Feds managed to convict Kian anyway, it’s a near certainty that Flynn is going to prison – and not for a particularly short amount of time. Flynn’s only hope now is a pardon from Donald Trump – but thus far Trump hasn’t pardoned any of the people who have gotten caught committing crimes for him.