The Week-End was quite nasty to Donald Trump & The GOP as epitomized by what Michael Moore Released on his Twitter Feed which we captured in the image above. This is as Friday December 1 2017 saw a guilty plea by Lt. General Michael Flynn, US Army (Ret), the Former Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor in Federal Court in Washington . The President sent out a very curious Tweet basically implicating himself (that his Counsel, John Dowd, claimed he wrote again denying and walking back the claim)--and as The Chair of the US House Intelligence Committee "Blew Up" as he demanded to hold contempt hearings on the Russia Probe:
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| Lt. Gen Michael Flynn, US Army (Ret) |
Time Magazine's Ryan Teaague Beckwith provided the clearest indication of the challenges faced by President Trump (as underscored by the Esquire's Charles Pierce) in the aftermath of the indictment not withstanding the spin by the White House and the subsequent reaction by President Trump himself as there were apparent reports that Jared Kushner, the President's Son-in-Law and White House Senior Adviser directed General Flynn's contacts with Russians.
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| By Ryan Teague Beckwith Trump's attorney, Ty Cobb, attempted the same maneuver on Friday as former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the transition. In a statement, Cobb pointedly noted that Flynn was national security advisor "for 25 days" and slyly added that he was "a former Obama administration official." "Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn," he said in the statement. "The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel's work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion.” But the official response — Trump's own response hasn't been tweeted yet — is simply a tougher sell this time around. Unlike Papadaopoulos, a hapless figure who sort of chanced into the Trump campaign, Flynn was a central character. A campaign advisor on national security who regularly went out on the hustings, Flynn intrigued Trump enough to merit serious consideration as a running mate, according to multiple reports from July of 2016. "The turn toward a military figure is being driven by Trump himself rather than by his advisers, the people said, and comes as the real estate mogul is telling his friends that national unrest may demand a 'tough and steady' presence alongside him on the ticket," noted one report in the Washington Post. Flynn led a chant of "lock her up" from the stage of the Republican national convention, using his national security background as a cudgel against her private email server. "If I did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today," he said, in a quote that he has had many occasions to regret. And before his time as national security advisor, he served on the Trump transition team, where he admitted in the plea deal that a senior member of the transition team directed him to make contact with Russian officials in December of 2016. In his official statement, Trump's attorney also pointed out that Flynn pleaded guilty to "a single count of making a false statement to the FBI," another attempt to minimize the day's events. But that's also a tough sell. It's fairly typical in complex cases like the Russia investigation for prosecutors to agree to drop more serious charges if a defendant agrees to cooperate with the investigation. And, make no mistake, Flynn faced some serious charges. In addition to the false statements he pleaded guilty to making, he faced questions about his business dealings overseas (as did his son), possible involvement in a plot to remove a Muslim cleric (which Flynn's lawyer denied) and his failure to report $530,000 for lobbying on behalf of the Turkish government (which he later addressed in a filing), among other things. Cobb's statement was also belied by Trump's own actions in the past. When Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey in the Oval Office to "let this go," it was about an investigation into Flynn, according to a memo that Comey wrote immediately after the meeting. And it was Comey's subsequent firing that led to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel. All of which leads to the final part of Cobb's statement today. "The conclusion of this phase of the Special Counsel's work demonstrates again that the Special Counsel is moving with all deliberate speed and clears the way for a prompt and reasonable conclusion," he said. That mirrors reports that Cobb has told Trump and others in the White House that the investigation will be wrapping up soon and that Trump will be exonerated, and other reports that Trump himself — in a highly unusual move — pressed senior Senate Republicans to wrap up their own Russian investigation soon as well. It's been a little over six months since Mueller was appointed — barely the amount of time that most low-level criminal cases take for completion. Flynn's guilty plea indicates that at least one member of the transition team — as yet unnamed — may face charges as well. A grand jury has already postponed some testimony in light of the plea. Of all the tough sells in Cobb's statement, the idea that Mueller's investigation is almost over might be the hardest pitch. This is as the Tax Cut plan was passed by the United States Senate and this was released by the team at the Guardian--and as Vox.Com noted over its' Twitter Feed over the Weekend that, "..A person in the bottom 10 % gets a $50 tax cut; A person in the top 1 % gets a $34,000 tax cut....":
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A person participating in a rally holds a sign in protest of a Republican-crafted tax cut plan, outside the US Capitol Building after sunset in Washington DC. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA
