Donald Trump may look back on this Thanksgiving as the day his entire presidency began to crumble.
It was reported Thursday that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his legal team were no longer sharing information with the White House, suggesting that Flynn is now cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and is willing to testify against the president and other members of the administration involved in the Russia matter.
Legal experts have long suspected that Trump might try to pardon those who face legal jeopardy as a result of the Russia probe, but former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti says Mueller may have just made that impossible. Mariotti tweeted this:
3/ I gave an ordinary introduction to an opening statement, and then realized I only had one minute to walk through that evidence. Definitely not how a real life opening statement would work!
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 24, 2017
But since Flynn’s team is no longer sharing anything with the White House, it now appears the Trump legal team is in the dark as far as trying to surmise what charges Mueller might be working on.
Mariotti also addressed the possibility of a pardon for Flynn:
10/ The analysts are also right that many crimes could have potentially been committed. I’ve discussed many in my threads in the past. But I kept it simple in the opening statement because I only had four minutes and was already short on time.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 24, 2017
In other words, Mueller has set a brilliant trap for the president: If he tries to go the route of pardoning Flynn, he may actually be providing evidence that he’s been obstructing justice all along. And instead of angling for a pardon, Flynn could get a much better deal if he tells Mueller everything he knows, Mariotti noted:
11/ The analysts are right that jurors usually come to a courtroom with very different views. A big challenge for a prosecutor is to bring them all together because even one “not guilty” vote creates a mistrial.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 24, 2017
13/ I explained the issues with the format and the other possible crimes that could be charged to give everyone context. Dershowitz is *wrong* that it’s not a crime to receive stolen material just because it’s intangible. That’s straight up false.
— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) November 24, 2017
Mueller is very close to having Trump in legal checkmate, and it looks like he’s given Trump only two options: Resign or be impeached.
It’s been said before, but it needs to be repeated: Robert Mueller is playing legal chess at a very high level. Trump, on the other hand, is still attempting to learn the basics of checkers.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org