Robert Mueller forced Michael Flynn to agree to wear a wire
This week Special Counsel Robert Mueller finalized a plea agreement with Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who agreed to testify in the Trump-Russia scandal in exchange for sentencing leniency. Now that the deal is official, its details are becoming a matter of public record. Among the most fascinating aspects of the plea deal: Mueller forced Flynn to agree to wear a wire.
In exact words, the deal required Flynn to agree to participate “in covert law enforcement activities,” as dug up by the Guardian (link). In other words, Flynn had to agree to spy on other suspects or targets involved in the Trump-Russia scandal. In Flynn’s case that could only have meant wearing a wire, planting a bug, or something similar. Considering that Flynn is ex-military and used to run the Defense Intelligence Agency, it’s perfectly reasonable to believe he could have pulled this off. Now for the bigger question: when the heck would this have happened?
We don’t know that Flynn actually did wear a wire, only that he was forced to agree to wear a wire. The strange part is that the clause is being included in Flynn’s plea deal just now, as his deal is becoming public, so everyone in the Trump-Russia scandal now knows not to talk to Flynn anyway. Some will argue that this is merely boilerplate language. But I believe there are two other possible, and more specific, explanations.
I’ve long suspected, based on a variety of circumstantial evidence, that Michael Flynn began partially cooperating with Robert Mueller this summer, to try to get Mueller to leave his son alone. If so, it’s possible Mueller had Flynn wearing a wire and spying on Donald Trump’s people back then. The other explanation would be that Mueller is throwing this clause into Flynn’s plea deal, despite not being able to act on it, simply to scare every other Trump-Russia suspect. The more paranoid they become about the possibility of Mueller already having dirt on them, the more likely they are to cut a deal.
