Michael Flynn just set himself on fire

| 8:35 pm EDT June 12, 2019
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Michael Flynn was so close to getting himself off the hook. All he had to do was sit quietly and endure some more righteous lectures from Judge Emmet Sullivan, before Sullivan would have reluctantly but inevitably given Flynn the little to no jail time that his plea deal called for. Flynn’s crimes were ugly, but he gave up crucial evidence against a bigger fish named Donald Trump, and that’s how plea deals work. But now Flynn has gone and blown it all up in one stunning move.

Last week Michael Flynn’s lawyer made a court filing confirming that Flynn had fired him and replaced him with someone new. The identity of Flynn’s new attorney was not revealed. At the time Palmer Report wrote that, depending on which direction he went with the new hire, Flynn was likely either looking to rehabilitate his public image post-sentencing, or he was looking to blow up his plea deal. Now we have our answer, and wow do we have it.

Michael Flynn’s new attorney is an infamous anti-FBI, anti-Mueller conspiracy theorist who is arguably best known for selling t-shirts that paint Flynn as a victim, according to a stunning new report from Politico. This leaves little doubt about the strategy that Flynn and his new lawyer intend to try – and there’s also little doubt about just how poorly that will go.

Judge Sullivan already threatened to throw the book at Michael Flynn earlier this year when his then-lawyer tried to make the absurd argument that FBI agents had entrapped and victimized him. Sullivan might have given Flynn probation right then and there, if not for this stunt. Now Flynn and his new lawyer are apparently about to try to convince the judge that Flynn was the victim of some massive, deranged, laugh out loud conspiracy theory. This could end up landing Flynn a multi-year prison sentence, as opposed to the zero to six months he’s currently facing.

So what is Michael Flynn doing? Nothing smart, that’s for sure. It’s not clear if Flynn is doing this because Donald Trump has falsely dangled a pardon in front of him, or if Flynn has decided that he’s willing to go to prison for a long time just so he can be a hero to far-right conspiracy theorists when he gets out, or if he’s simply snapped. In any case, Flynn is setting himself on fire here.