Did James Comey just reveal that Michael Flynn has already cut a deal with the FBI?
Perhaps the only person harder to read in the Trump-Russia scandal than James Comey, who has said little and given away even less, is Michael Flynn, who has said nothing at all. But when Comey does occasionally speak, he chooses his words carefully and purposely, and that alone can give some things away that he seems to want known even if he can’t say them outright. One segment of Comey’s testimony on Wednesday in particular seemed to hint that Michael Flynn may have already cut a deal with the FBI.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked James Comey how the FBI handles those it’s planning to use as witnesses. “Yes” or “no” would have sufficed. But Comey gave a surprisingly detailed answer about how the FBI does in fact try to steer its witnesses toward getting themselves on the right side of the law before they testify. Now to be fair, he was offering a hypothetical and he didn’t reference anyone in particular. But within the context of the Trump-Russia scandal, it seemed like he was being asked whether Michael Flynn’s decision to register as a foreign agent should be taken as a sign that Flynn has already cut a deal.
Comey surely knew that’s what was being hinted at, and yet he didn’t hesitate to give an answer that sure made it sound like he was tacitly confirming as much. That’s my take, at least. Millions of others watched the same exchange on live television on Wednesday, and may have come away with a different interpretation. And many may have missed it because the hypothetical involved tax returns, making it sound like the whole thing was a discussion of Trump’s tax returns, even though it initially wasn’t.
You can read the entire exchange between Whitehouse and Comey by going here and searching the transcript for the words “does not become an issue.” But to me it felt fairly straightforward, at least within the byzantine layers of translucence with which Comey seems to sometimes purposely telegraph things while trying to make it sound like he’s being evasive. Why would he give that away, though?
There’s no overwhelming public interest in knowing that Michael Flynn may have cut a deal. And it was subtle enough that most people would have overlooked it even it’s precisely what Comey was telegraphing. But I don’t think Comey was trying to get a message to the public. If anything, he may have been subtly informing the other Trump Russia suspects – all of whom were surely watching with great interest today – that Flynn has already gotten the first and best deal, and that they’d better hurry up and cut theirs while there are still deals to be had.
