No, Michael Flynn isn’t changing his guilty plea

| 10:08 pm EST February 21, 2018
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Earlier this week a number of pro-Trump entities signaled how desperate they’ve become, and how worried they are about Donald Trump’s sinking fortunes, when they publicly asked him to begin pardoning everyone in the Trump-Russia scandal. This was a non-story, as there is no indication Trump is preparing to pardon anyone, and the courts would probably rule that he can’t pardon his alleged co-conspirators anyway. But now it’s morphed into a much bigger non-story.

Today there’s a widespread claim, coming from conservative and pro-Trump media outlets, that Michael Flynn may be preparing to change his plea from guilty to not guilty. This would be stunning if true, both because it would be coming out of nowhere, and because this kind of thing almost never happens. Here’s the thing: it’s not true.

This new false narrative appears to have been built on a combination of two things. The first is the (false) claim that Trump is preparing to pardon Flynn. The second is that the judge in the Flynn case has sent a letter to Robert Mueller and the prosecution, reminding them that they’re required to turn over any evidence they uncover that might work in Flynn’s favor. The legal experts on the Rachel Maddow show tonight don’t seem to think that the letter means much of anything in particular.

Follow the pattern here. Just a few days after Donald Trump’s allies tried to create the phony storyline about Trump pardoning Michael Flynn, they’re now trying to create a phony storyline about Flynn changing his guilty plea. There’s nothing to any of this. It’s the kind of wishful-thinking desperation antics that people resort to when they know their side is about to lose. Even if Flynn were changing his plea, which he isn’t, it wouldn’t much matter because Flynn has already turned over all the evidence he has against Trump – and that’s what has his allies so scared.