This is how criminal prosecutions work. You target a big fish and you make plea deals with all the little fish below him to catch him. You don't have to like it, but it's pretty logical and it's how it always works. A little fish has no reason to testify against a bigger fish if you don't incentivize them.
Brian Ross: Flynn prepared to testify against Trump and members of his family as well as members of the White House staff
Nah, they could just give him immunity - but then again, the guy actually appears to have committed several felony crimes, getting him to plead to just one is at least something...even if Trump pardons him it will always be there. The question is whether we will live in a country where the very highest government officials turning their back your country and collaborating in espionage with hostile foreign governments for their own personal benefit and financial gain is actually something that matters - for a large segment of the population, it apparently does not any more, and that is pretty awful to contemplate.
I wonder if they were using a Logan Act violation as leverage. This a far more serious plea than Papa-D's.
Trump will soon tweet that he or his team never said such a thing 20 times. Never, ever. Its all fake news. Democratic plot. Rigged system. Never talked to no Putin. Never grabbed no p***y.
Probably didn't want to let him off scott free and it sounds like they had leverage not just on his own charges but potentially using his son as well. Prosecutors probably told hm "Look, immunity is off the table. You will be convicted of a crime it's just a matter of whether you want the small charge or the full enchilada plus watching your son spend his prime years in prison."
Rhetorical question... can a U.S. president issue a pardon for himself in advance? Asking for a friend...
This will probably have very little impact on elections. Trump voters are not going to care about this. In fact, it may inspire MORE of his voters to show up.
It was not the 30% of his base that will decide the election in 2018, it will be all people who are motivated to throw out the GOP in 2018 that will decide the race, but it will be hard to take back both chambers in 2018. If GOP keeps one, he should be safe until 2020.
Prepare for some extreme Trump deflection and misdirection attempts - unfortunately for Donald the only thing left that would work is a nuke or an Ivanka sex tape.
No matter how severe these things get, I somehow still can't believe that they would actually impeach Trump. This could either restore my faith or completely destroy it.
Trump has a historic low approval rating, which may be going lower. Differential of Repub and Dem approval ratings is 10+% which historically means the mid terms are going to heavily favor the Dems. The Repubs are on the verge of electing a pedophile. The Repub Congress's big achievement is looking to be a tax cut for the top 1% while screwing the other 99%.
LOL at "Obama administration official" as if he didn't spend all of 2016 tethered to Trump's side at campaign rallies.
