Renato MariottiVerified account @renato_mariotti 2h
1/ Today @NBCNews reported Mueller has enough evidence to charge former National Security Advisor Flynn and his son.
2/ The article reports that Mueller is putting increased pressure on Flynn after his indictment of Manafort.
3/ This suggests to me that Mueller's team contacted Flynn about cooperating, and that Flynn's team is the source of this story.
4/ It is commonplace for federal prosecutors to contact defense counsel before they bring indictments in white collar cases.
5/ The obvious leverage that Mueller has over Flynn is that he could indict Flynn's son. Flynn could cooperate on his son's behalf.
6/ That's called "vicarious cooperation."
7/ Typically I'd expect Mueller to have a reasonable chance at convincing Flynn to cooperate on his son's behalf.
8/ The article indicates Mueller is looking at whether Flynn received millions of dollars in exchange for helping the Turkish government.
9/ If that is charged and proved, it would likely result in a substantial prison sentence for Flynn above and beyond what his son faces.
10/ But in this case, we should expect that Trump will pardon Flynn. If Comey was truthful, Trump asked him to stop investigating Flynn.
11/ Flynn's son has been on a twitter tirade against Mueller today. For instance, he retweeted this:Renato Mariotti added,
12/ If you check out @mflynnJR you'll see many recent tweets attacking Mueller. It's common for defendants to attack the prosecutor.
13/ It's fairly unusual for them to do that before there are charges. It suggests that Flynn Jr. knows he'll be charged and refuses to flip.
14/ That tells me that Flynn and his son expect a pardon. Publicly attacking the prosecutor is a foolish move otherwise.
15/ For one thing, prosecutors recommend sentences to the judge. At times, the defense also wants the government to work with them.
16/ An aggressive defense can be a very good thing, but needlessly attacking the prosecutor's integrity or character is rarely helpful.
17/ So it appears that Flynn and his son expect a pardon and are not worried about state charges, which Trump can't pardon. /end