Michael Flynn Jr just incriminated Mike Pence in the Trump-Russia scandal
Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has agreed to plead guilty and go to prison just to keep his son out of legal trouble. So it’s been odd, to say the least, that Michael Flynn Jr keeps mouthing off about the Trump-Russia scandal on Twitter, in ways that have caused potential problems for all sides. Now, however, Junior is defending his father in a manner which directly incriminates Mike Pence in the scandal.
Trump and Pence claimed they fired Michael Flynn because he lied to Pence about his transition period phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. However, Pence’s story has always been suspect, because he claimed in subsequent television interviews that he had no idea Flynn was dirty at all, even though House Democrats had warned Pence months earlier that Flynn was illegally on the take from foreign governments. Now Michael Flynn Jr says that his father never did lie to Mike Pence.
Here’s what Michael Flynn Jr tweeted today: “American Patriot General Michael Flynn did not lie to Pence (or anyone else in the admin) about his perfectly legal and appropriate conversations w Russian AMB Kislyak in Dec 2016.” To be clear, Flynn’s transition period negotiations about Russian sanctions were illegal. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and agreed to testify against everyone involved, in order to avoid facing criminal charges for his illegal dalliances with various foreign governments. So Flynn Jr’s understanding of the law is way off the mark here. But if he’s telling the truth about his father having never lied to Pence, it means Pence committed a crime. As nutty as Flynn Jr may be, we can’t imagine he would make this kind of claim without running it past his father first.
Lying to the public is considered to be felony obstruction of justice when it’s done with the intention of throwing off investigators. So if Mike Pence was lying when he claimed that Michael Flynn was lying to him, it means Pence isn’t surviving this. Flynn already spilled his guts to Special Counsel Robert Mueller months ago, though it’s still not publicly known what he said. The big question here is whether he can prove what he said to Pence. If so, Pence might as well resign now.
