general michael flynn is inside.onathan turley, sir, good morning to you and welcome to our ongoing coverage here. you're a constitutional law professor and on and on your resume runs. big picture what can you say about this now? >> this is obviously a significant development but it is not an unexpected development. general flynn was viewed as the most at risk of the top figures in the trump administration due to his work as a foreign agent and a series of statements that were viewed as untrue. people in washington in these scandals tend to get nailed not for the underlying crimes or scandals but how they respond to it. this is an example. the white house has a positive spin. this is about flynn's conduct in relation to the f.b.i. it doesn't establish on its face necessarily there was collusion. it is a plea to a false statement made to f.b.i. investigators. moreover, the white house made clear that flynn was shown the door because he misrepresented the meeting with vice president pence. so all of that gives them som

why exactly did general flynn lie? he -- general flynn knows the answer.eral flynn is cooperating with the special counsel. and presumably that answer will come forth. so there are many more questions to be answered. and i don't think the president can tweet them away. >> it's interesting because the president, you know, would say, you know, that he was lawful, his actions were lawfulduring the transition. you know but then there's an admission to lying to the fbi. so it just doesn't make sense why the president would feel like, you know, saying that would clear the air. >> now, there is a -- there is a kind of arcane violation of law that would come into play based on what we know about what general flynn did, which is a violation of this law, the logan act, very rarely applied, when private citizens are negotiating for the united states of america. we have a tradition in this country that presidents are presidents until the moment that they leave office. and there's only one voice for american foreign policy. that was violated here. but one suspects tha

over the weekend said the following with regard to general flynn. i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the f.b.i. he had pled guilty to those lies. it is a shame because his actions are in a transition where lawful there was nothing to hide. now we understand the attorney john dowd wrote that. is that true? second, why make that statement? >> john dowd said he wrote the tweet. the first one he has ever written for the president. i think the president himself has talked before that tweet and after that tweet quite a lot on the matter. we should look at the full measure of what he has said. he said he was asked -- i was standing there when he was asked on the south lawn saturday morning before we took off for new york by the press pool they asked him are you worried about yesterday and he said no, there was no collusion. we're happy about that. he keeps saying that. that is exactly what the mainstream media who has been in a lather about russia, russia, russia for a year now, that's what they've been focused on and cha

i do not think that general flynn acted alone.n kept people in the loop and we'll see. >> just to add on to that, what we just learned from the "new york times" in the last hour is that this wasn't a rogue act. he was directed by k.t. mcfarland to do it on a day where michael flynn had meetings with numerous trump senior officials and building a little more off what robert said, this is not -- trump cannot say he was hoodwinked by this. he was warned early on by chris christie, president obama, that michael flynn was a problematic dude and still brought him into the administration. all the warning signs were there and donald trump still decided to move ahead with him. >> part of the why, liz, to you robert on this, according to reporting from the "new york times" it could give you some idea behind it. they were worried the very idea, the connection of russia with the trump campaign would invalidate or forever haunt them, if you will, in a young administration, that that question, was the election real? part of the reporting here.

. >> i feel badly for general flynn. he's led a strong life. and i feel badly. i will say this, hillary clinton lied many times to the fbi and nothing happened to her. flynn lied and they destroyed his life. i think it's a shame. >> trump leaving unanswered this key question about general flynn. >> thank you very much. >> did you lie to the fbi? >> trump's problems garn when he fired off a series of angry tweets this weekend in the wake of flynn's guilty plea to lying to the fbi. among them, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. remember, back in may, trump said he fired flynn, because he lied to pence. he did not mention in anyway shape or format that time that flynn had lied to the fbi. >> my white house council came to me, they had -- i believe, two meetings and we ultimately fired. but we fired for a different reason. >> you're talking about general flynn? >> general flynn. yes. >> because of lying to the vice president? >> yeah, but everything plays in. everything plays into it, we fired him because he said something

how about general flynn. we love general flynn. mike flynn. i want to thank general flynn for being a great guy. great man. general flynn, who is here someplace. i love general flynn. michael flynn, general flynn, is a wonderful man. >> this is no witch hunt as the president has repeatedly claimed. this is a search for the truth. following the facts wherever they lead. even into the president's own family. cnn learning tonight that jared kushner himself, the president's son-in-law, directed flynn weeks before the inauguration to contact the russian ambassador about a u.n. security council vote on israeli settlements. that is according to sources familiar with the matter. here's a timeline of flynn's contacts with russia. december 22, 2016. general flynn asks russian ambassador serge kislyak to postpone that security council vote. december 29th. president obama announces new sanctions against russia. and flynn asks kislyak not to retaliate. november 30th, russian president vladamir putin says he won't retaliate against u.s. sanctions. january 2

great man. >> general flynn who's here some place. i love general flynn. michael flynn, general flynn, is a wonderful man. >> so karun, you know, the association is pretty tight. >> yes, it's also remarkable that the trump legal team is kind of repeating the same play as they've tried to use for others. which is to say oh, they weren't that big of a player. >> the coffee boy, the volunteer. >> which you saw with the papadopoulos plea, when that one came out. flynn, it doesn't really pass the smell test to say the same thing. as you just played, there's so many pieces of tape with the president speaking about flynn in very high tones. you know they were close. you know flynn was a close supporter, very influenceal adviser as well. >> couldn't that make flynn feel wait a minute are you kidding me? i'm going to shed a little more light on this. >> if he has more light to shed, true. it's a question if he -- certainly he is going to be talking to lawyers and he's going to be in the thick of this now as he discloses what he can, connects the dots that he knows h

general flynn lies to the fbi and his life is destroyed. look at hillary clinton on that famous fbi holiday interrogation, in parenthesis, with no swearing in and no recording lies and nothing happens to her. rigged system or double standard? we don't know there was no recording. we don't know whether there was a swearing in. at least i don't know of anything like that. i don't know that anybody else does, either. what the official protocol was. does he have a point? people might be looking going, yeah, that's a good question to ask. >> i'd say he doesn't have a point. what we have seen for over a year is when ever anyone asks candidates then president-elect, now president donald trump, about his actions, about what he has done, he gos to personal insults, he goes back to so-called crooked hillary. he tries to distract. he tries to insult. he tries to make us look at anything but him and his actions. only one person here has top officials who have pleaded guilty to felonies. it is not hillary clinton. >> we have reports that kt mcfarland ha

general flynn pled guilty to federal district court charges that he lied to the feds about his conversations with the russian ambassador. flynn is the first trump administration official in the fourth connected to the campaign to be charged as part of a special counsel robert mueller's wide-ranging investigation into possible collusion between russia and members of trump steam. we are going to say it early, no evidence of that collusion. and then there is this. "it has been extraordinarily painful to endure these many months of false accusation of treason and other outrageous acts but i acknowledged that the accusations i spoke of in court today were wrong." john roberts on the north lawn, we are live right now. >> good afternoon today, sorry, i couldn't hear you for a second. we got our first statement from the white house a little while ago, the president's attorney on the russia investigation is working inside the white house counsel office. michael flynn was the national security advisor for a duration of only 25 days and then going on to say "the false statements involved the false stat

in a separate instance flynn contacted the russian ambassador about a pending vote in the u.n. general assembly regarding israel. according to the charges, "a very senior member of the presidential transition team directed flynn to contact officials from foreign governments, including russia, to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution." nbc news reported today that the very senior official was jared kushner, the president's son-in-law. in a statement today michael flynn said, i recognize that the actions i acknowledged in court today were wrong, and through my faith in god i am working to set things right. my guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the special counsel's office reflect the decision i made in the best wanted of my family and of our country. i accept full responsibility for my actions." there was strong reaction to today's news from democrats on the hill involved in the russia probe. their message, there's more to come. >> my hope is general flynn will tell everything he knows an

when general flynn said i never discussed sanctions, that was a lie. unfortunately the list goes on and on. >> today final question as you look at the president's national security adviser here. what he has pled guilty to. the substance of those conversations. the people he had the conversations with and the trump transition team. do you believe what we see here today leads to the president? >> i don't know. it all depends on who the officials are. if the senior officials by the fbi and if they made the same false statements that general flynn did and they were part of that discussion that led to this may not be the last guilty plea we see. >> a momentous day. thank you very much for taking the time. >> still ahead, robert mueller's russia probe is reaching a former official. we will look at where the investigation goes from here. on capitol hill, senate republicans are trying to keep their eye on another issue entirely. tax reform. after the break we will look at where the vote stands. patrick woke up with a sore back. but he's got work to do. so he t

incredible guy. >> how about general flynn. we love general flynn, right? nn. >> i want to thank general flynn for being here. great guy. great man. >> general flynn, who is here some place. i love general flynn. >> michael flynn is a wonderful man. >> so jack, how do you explain this? is it loyal until he's not? there's no question that general flynn was involved in the campaign. general flynn was advising the campaign. i don't think there's a real argument there despite what may be coming out of the white house about it. the real question is is after over a year's worth of investigation and millions and millions of dollars, there's still nothing about collusion. he lied to the fbi. >> except we don't know that. >> the actions he took in december. >> we don't know that, right. >> we know at this point, there's been nothing shown about collusion. yeah, it's true. six months from now, two weeks from now, we could find something, but we've been hearing that for a year now that there was collusion. no question about it. this is going to be an easy case. the cri

>> i talked to general flynn yesterday. and the conversations that took place at that time, were, were not in any way related. to new u.s. sanctions. against russia or expulsion of diplomats. >> one of the purposes of the flynn's conversations was to reasure the kremlin that incoming administration was reverse the obama administration sanctions, punishing russia for meddling in the elect tugs help trump win. joined now by frank, the former assistant director of counterintelligence and fbi, and, john lauro, former federal prosecutor and nbc analyst. thank you. what do you think is the damaging information. frank, this guy holds? that, flynn can give to the prosecutor to use as the he wishes? >> yeah, look, we heard the judge today in court. say that, your, your sentence depend on your cooperation. and i think that cooperation is going to go right to the top. i want to throw out three names here. first, vice president pence has some serious explaining to do. prior states. conversations. jared kushner ex-pleaposed for violation

. >> general flynn, who is a phenomenal man. we love our general flynn.e want tough and we want smart. he is both. >> they had a lot of the same beliefs. i'm sure mike flynn realized early on that trump shares my opinion. >> russia, if you are listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> at the 2016 republican national convention, michael flynn delivers an impassioned speech in support of trump. >> with donald trump in the white house, we will make america great again. we do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law. >> flynn's support pays off when donald trump is elected president. >> the trump transition team pushed back hard over reports the cia concluded that russia actually intervened in the u.s. presidential election to help trump win. >> amidst evidence that russia tampered with the election -- >> it was a threat to our democracy. that's a big deal. here were a set of allegations the trump campaign was involved in the effort with working with the russians and the russians were sort of trying

flynn. >> i think on its face it has a lot to do with people other than general flynn. >> reporter: one of those people, the president's son-in-law. documents released today say a very senior official in the transition team told flynn to contact the russian ambassador about a u.n. resolution involving israel. we are now told that person was jared kushner. ivanka trump's husband. flynn now admitting he lied about his discussions of that u.n. resolution. flynn also admits to lying to the fbi about a phone call with russian ambassador sergei kislyak on december 29th last year. the same day president obama announced sanctions against russia for interfering in the u.s. presidential campaign in 2016. something the u.s. intelligence community confirmed, stating, russia's actions favored donald trump. flynn falsely told the fbi and vice president mike pence that he didn't talk about the sanctions with kislyak. but in february, intelligence leaks reportedly from wiretaps of kislyak's phone calls showed that flynn had asked that russians not escalate the situation. >> very surprising to think tha

but if it involves donald trump the candidate, instructing general flynn or acquiescing in general flynnin deals with the russians, we have this very profound problem on our hands of an american citizen, general flynn and the future president, helping the russians to interfere in an american election. we don't know exactly what it is. i saw the -- as most of us have by now -- the plea agreement. it pertains to communications with russians during the transition president. it does not really address what might have happened or what instruction the president or the candidate might have given to general flynn during the campaign j we also don't know to your point there, to put a fine point to it, whether this was before he was elected president or after when he was president-elect. is there a difference and distinction there legally? >> absolutely critical distinction. because after he's elected president, he has no interest in affecting the outcome of the campaign. but i did see, neil, reading between the lines, in the plea agreement, what i think general flynn is going to go to and where i

with general flynn? in response, mcfarland wrote back, i am not aware of any of the issues or events as described above, according to her july response. what we learned on friday from the court documents that were unsealed in the flynn case in which he pleaded guilty, it says that there was a senior transition official who discussed with flynn how to approach the idea of these new sanctions that have been imposed by the obama administration in late december with kislyak. now, we have learned separately that a senior transition official who is named in those court documents was in fact k.t. mcfarland. so her testimony before a committee in part of her confirmation hearings appears to contradict what bob mueller and the special counsel released on friday as part of their court documents that was signed by michael flynn as part of this plea agreement. this is all raising new questions, anderson, on capitol hill about whether or not k.t. mcfarland was truthful with the senate foreign relations committee as p

let's take a look. >> i feel badly for general flynn. i feel very badly. has led a very strong life, and i feel very badly. i will say this, hillary clinton lied many times to the fbi. nothing happened to her. flynn lied and they destroyed his life. i think it's a shame. hillary clinton on the fourth of july weekend went to the fbi, not under oath, it was the most incredible thing anyone has ever seen. she lied many times, nothing happened to her. flynn lied and it's like they ruined his life. very unfair. >> sean: this is a ton of information to unpack here. let me break this down even further for you. here's what all of this means. we have an anti-trump pro hillary clinton top fbi official that is directly involved in letting hillary clinton lock free before interviewing for the key people in the investigation, including hillary clinton. they exonerated clinton before ever concluding the investigation. then the same fbi official helped oversee special counsel robert mueller's probe into possible election interference and according to sarah carter's repor

general, what do you think went wrong with general flynn? >> well, it's hard to say. first of all, he clearly was one incredibly courageous effective intelligence officer. we owe a lot to him and general stand mccrystal. my guess is we would have had a dozen 9/11's, the jsoc group he was a part of then he got into the defense intelligence agency and he started to get target fixation chasing the white whale. he selectively accepted information. they thought he was a little bit off his game. then when the obama team fired him i think that's when he went into a dark zone. his behavior, retweeting pizza gate with pefld rings in basements and hillary clinton chanting at the rnc. this was pretty nutty stuff. i think 80s sad day for mike flynn. and then of course the subsequent behavior in the white house where it looks as if he was working on private business in public office. that starts to veer into clearly illegal behavior. >> and ambassador, in your days since you were a diplomat, you have tried on this and other broadcasts to flesh out this russia fascination, some peop

is there any talk on the floor there, talk around you about this general flynn development? hatter here has been about the tax deal. this erupted just a couple of moments ago about flynn when the house was leaving session. in fact, we have some tape from a couple of members and their reaction. i've not even gotten a chance to listen to it. what we've heard mostly is from dianne feinstein, the top democrat on the judiciary committee. but what was pretty clear a little while ago is that rip ard burr, the republican from north carolina, the chair of the senate intelligence committee which is smugglesly probing the russia matter didn't want to have any comment at all on flynn or where this stood or how it impacted his probe. stuart: this is just coming out, senator lindsey graham says, yes, we've got the 50. so that takes some pressure off the, this column which is assessing the tax cut deal versus the general flynn column over here. we're till down 186 points -- still down 186 points. but as we're speaking about lindsey graham saying, yeah, we've got 50, the market is coming bac

they're pressing back hard against general flynn as this thing continues on. >> jjulia, i want to take a ste back when the white house distanced themselves from mike flynn by calling him an obama official. why is he now giving the appearance that he's protecting mike flynn? >> yeah. this is just another distraction that trump has offered to, i guess, almost take the attention away from mike flynn. we've seen in his recent tweets he's brought hilary cloig into the investigation and called on an additional investigation into that -- we've seen trump do this in the past when he's brought hillary clinton in the past probe into her e-mail server into this equation again. this is trump's equation on how to go about this. >> let's talk about. many the tweets bringing hillary clinton and the justice department into the equation. is this red meat for the base or something else? >> it's definitely red meat for the base. look, as far as whether or not general flynn is a former obama official, i mean, let's be frank here. general flynn played an influential part in the trump campaign particularly

. >>> general flynn! >> it was a precipitous fall. >> michael flynn charged with making false statements to the fbi. >> general michael flynn, a decorated military commander and close trump confidant, pleading guilty to a federal crime, and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. >> the charge reveels flynn wasn't acting alone in his talks to russians. >> how damaging could all this been for the president and those closest to him? >> the russia investigation is creeping closer to the president. >> bringing special counsel robert mueller's investigation inside president trump's innermost circle. >> yes, that's right. lock her up! >> the man who taunted hillary clinton on the campaign trail with chants of "lock her up" -- >> lock her up! >> lock him up! >> now on the other side of those very same words. >> lock him up! >> the crushing downfall of president trump's former national security adviser raises many new questions. will flynn's testimony put others in legal jeopardy? and could the probe now extend al

you called general flynn the best intelligence officer of his generation. i think you still hold to if we set aside that time. you later, however, turned on him when his public uttering started to change and you said you feared he was demented. retired general mark hurtling who was i believe in the service said on television tonight, something is genuinely wrong with general flynn and demons got ahold of him. gentlemen, what do you think went wrong with general flynn? >> hard to say. first of all he clearly was one incredibly courageous effective intelligence officer. we oh a lot to him and general stan mccrystal. my guess is we would have had a dozen 9/11s if it wasn't for the special operations group this flynn is such an important part of. we got into the defense intelligence agency and started to get target fixation chasing the white whale. he started to selectively select information. they thought he was a little off his game. when he was fired he went into a dark zone. his behavior retweeting pizza gate with pedophile rings and basements and hillary c

and general flynn lied. and what's surprising to me is that the president knew that he lied to the fbi, and then continued to try to pressure the fbi not to pursue an investigation of mr. flynn. of general flynn. and then fired james comey. i think he's tweeted his way into an obstruction of justice situation. >> do you agree with that in terms of what we saw and read on twitter this morning? >> absolutely not. you cannot and should not prosecute the president for exercising his constitutional authority. he had the authority to fire comey. he had the authority to tell comey to stop investigating flynn. we may not like that, jefferson liked it. he told his attorney general who to prosecute, who not to prosecute. lincoln did the same thing. franklin roosevelt did the same thing. barack did the same thing yet we can't make it a crime. we have an untarry executive and you need a mens rea. and the ac test ray a, act of a crime can't be a constitutionally protected act regardless of what the motive may have been, w

so many people -- it's clear after the flynn plea, so many people in the transition knew that general flynn was conducting private foreign policy with russia and also on another matter relating to a u.n. security council resolution, why did they cover it up so aggressively and why did flynn lie about it when he was questioned after becoming national security adviser? what are they hiding? >> samantha, are you surprised to learn that it was not pence, the lead of that transition team, but jared kushner apparently and katie mcfarland who were directing flynn and the people -- his point of contact regarding these calls? >> unfortunately, i'm not surprised by much anymore, but what is very clear is this transition team was running a rogue foreign policy. let's look at what transition teams are supposed to do. they're supposed to ensure that there is a policy transition between the administration and the incoming administration. it's not unusual for there to be policy differences. but in this case senior transition team officials were working directly with a foreign government, russia, on u.s. p

what is your reaction to what is going on with general flynn right now? >> just based on what we have so far, it is never prudent to perjure yourself to the fbi. and we know that michael flynn has shown a lack of judgment, shall we say, in many of his dealings. dining with vladimir putin, taking money from the russian entities, extraditing a turkish opposition leader. i am not particularly surprised about this. my question is is the fbi investigating what we found out in the first place, which was how michael flynn's name was leaked it to the press, which is the only crime, other than this perjury, that we know about so far. everything else is a speculation. personally, i would like to know how the fbi got to be warned to listen in on that conversation that michael flynn had with the russian ambassador, and who leaked that name to the press? because that is a crime. crime. to be do you ask the question, do we have any idea if that is being investigated? do we? >> i don't think we do know that yet. we are going to hear a lot of speculation at today about wh

not all the evidence is going to come from general flynn.eneral flynn will lead them to others whom they will contact and indict and from whom they will extract information. he will probably also lead them to tangible things like e-mails and notes and memos and maps and the type of forensic evidence that prosecutors like to use. >> shepard: larry litman writes for "the new york times," it seems that president-elect trump directed mr. flynn to make contact with the russians. if mr. flynn testifies to this, abc's brian ross is reporting he will, it presents another impeachable offense along with the obstruction of justice. it brings the matter outside the purview of the criminal courts into the province of a political scandal indicating abuses of power well beyond those in the watergate and iran contra affairs. your reaction. >> it would depend on when this occurred. if it occurred while he was a candidate and the purpose of communicating with the russians was to facilitate and encourage or justify their interference with the american politica

boarding off of that though on your point about who it might have been, garrett to you, we know general flynn was retired three star general, dedicated his life to this countsry to do this without any sort of instruction, michael is right, the question is if he was directed by senior officials, who would those senior officials have been, a? and b wouldn't the other question be who might he have shared this information with? >> yeah, i mean michael is exactly right this is relatively small universe of people. if you are the national security adviser on the transition incoming white house national security adviser, there just aren't that many people who can direct you to be doing something. but i think it's also important to not look at this in a vacuum. what we saw today is actually the second piece of what seems to be very significant evidence that bob mueller now has up his sleeve. because remember in the last round of cases that came down, george papadopoulos also pled out as part of a cooperation agreement. >> right. so what does mueller do with it? >> well, so we don't know yet as far as

lieutenant general flynn was surveilled, he was unmasked. he was leaked to the press. at is illegal, that is a crime. nobody has been investigated or arrested. what they did to flynn is b illegal and we can -- we can't discount the other massive conflicts of interest. the other red flags coming from special counsel mueller's team. for example, team members of mueller's team, look at the money on your screen, donated tens of thousands of dollars not to any republicans, democrats like barack obama and hillary n clinton. how can anybody honestly say that those people are going to be fair and impartial after supporting liberal politicians with huge amounts of money? including president trump's 2016 opponent. this stinks to high heaven.g and as the investigator andrew weissmann, another questionable member and choice by mueller's team. our friend and colleague gregg jarrett did some digging into his past. here's what he found. that during the enron accounting scandal, weissmann was a hard-charging prosecutor on the task force that brought a controversial obstruction of justi

including the attorney general of florida with what is going on with flynn. it begins at 10 a.m. ough noon. the fallout from these fast moving developments. this is not the largest tax cuts in american history, it is the most significant in a generation. it will change the way you live. see you tomorrow. >> ♪ >> ♪ >> hello i am dana perino with rachael, richard, tucker carlson and this is the "the five." the stunning steinle verdict in san francisco in a moment. a break new development on the mueller investigation in washington. former national security advisor michael flynn appeared in federal court and pleaded guilty to lying about his conversations with the russian

by potentially incriminating himself, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. he has pled guilty to those lies. some calling the president's words an admission of obstruction of justice. when flynn resigned in february, trump gave no end case that he knew flynn had lied to the fbi. >> i fired him because of what he said to mike pence, very simple. >> reporter: former fbi director james comey told congress that the day after flynn exited, the president asked him to go easy on flynn. >> i understood him to be saying that what he wanted me to do was drop any investigation connected to flynn's account of his conversations with if russians. >> reporter: earlier this morning on twitter, mr. trump said he never asked comey to top investigating flynn and adding to the intrigue, the president's personal lawyer, john dowd saying he was the one who crafted the president's tweet about michael flynn. the white house hasn't weighed in yet, but the tweet sparking questions this morning about how much the president knew and when. alex, john dowd is telling nbc new

let's get more on general flynn.s the head of the defense intelligence agency, fired by barack obama and then became a major campaign adviser and surrogate for candidate trump and designated to be his national security adviser. >> reporter: major figure during the transition and only served as national security adviser, george, for 24 days. ultimately fired because he lied to the vice president for the very thing that he is now being charged with lying to the fbi about. and george, i've got to tell you, when you rewind, this is about a conversation he had with the ambassador, the russian ambassador on the day that the obama administration imposed sanctions on russia for meddling in the election, ex spelling diplomats. i remember vividly talking to sean spicer when this news broke and him telling me in this conversation flynn and the ambassador never talked about those sanctions that had been imposed just hours before the conversation, didn't find it believable then and of course now it turns out it was entirely untru

only after the ninth of february, when a newspaper revealed general flynn did discuss sanctions when e wasn't authorized to do so, did pressure increase, and michael flynn lost his job. michael flynn became one key focus of the investigation into russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election and the potential collusion of the trump campaign. the white house is now trying to distance itself from general flynn's actions and the lies he told to the fbi. but there is no question that this latest development brings the russia investigation ever closer to the president himself. aleem maqbool, bbc news, washington. rajini: for more on the significance of today's development scheme i'm joined by attorney allender sure it's -- alan dershowitz, who is in boston tonight. is flynn to the investigation? alan: viable in the sense that he is the highest person they've got but he is not a very good witness, because he has admitted that he lied, and blessing the prosecutor wants to do is have to invite his potential witness for life. -- for lying.r i think mueller looked for every possible violatio

you don't know exactly what general flynn is coming at you with. and there's an interesting detail in the flynn plea agreement, which he only receives immunity for this very limited charge that he has pleaded guilty to. the false statements made to the fbi. and it leaves open this entire world of conduct that could potentially be topic of a follow on superseding indictment that flynn could cooperate on. very unpredictable. when you look at that agreement, looks like mueller's team crafted it really carefully to keep their ultimate goals with flynn opaque. so the strategy looks poor from the outside. >> you wrote an article -- not you. carol lin ig. white house advisers noetsed that flynn did not plead guilty to being a co-conspirator in any criminal extreme. which they argue shows he's note able to provide evidence of larger conspiracy. so how much of a crime is it? are you suggesting that fact they didn't charge flynn with criminal conspiracy just means didn't charge that now? they could charge him later? >> exactly right. often if you have a defen

>> as national security adviser, one of the president's key confidants. >> general flynn is a wonderfulmanof a deal to avoid more severe charges for himself and his son signaling he has valuable information about the president's inner circle and mr. trump's family members that he is willing to share. >> he is pleading to a really very minor charge considering the scope of all of the exposure that has been reported. >> flynn admitted to lying about two separate contacts he had in december with then russian ambassador to the united states sergey kislyak. the first on december 22nd, when prosecutors say flynn was directed by a very senior member of the presidential transition team to urge foreign governments to oppose a u.n. security council resolution against israel. sources tell anybody news that the senior official was the president's son-in-law jared kushner. a week later after president obama announced new sanctions against russia for interfering in the u.s. election, flynn discussed what, if anything, to communicate to the russian ambassador about sanctions with another senior transitio

. >> i believe a week ago there was word that this joint agreement that existed between general flynn and the white house was no more, correct? >> that's correct. >> what do we make of the timing here, just seven days after that agreement goes up in smoke, now all of a sudden the general decides he wants to sing? >> this is very curious to me. perhaps there's a reasonable answer. consider this, there was a common interest agreement between many defendants and their lawyers so they could communicate and share information. typically these agreements will provide that if somebody in the group decides to start talking to prosecutors, they're out. they're kicked out of the group and no longer allowed back in. if they're talking to prosecutors, you don't want to be communicating with that potential defendant. the reason this is curious to me is a week ago he leaves. that means in a week leading up to now, he would have had to meet with prosecutors, proffer, like what they heard, draft the agreement and then he would come in and plead guilty. it's possible all that happened in a week, but wh

comes as white house press secretary sarah sanders tries to clean up trump's tweet, saying he knew general flynn lied to the fbi when he urged then-fbi director jim comey to drop the investigation into flynn. the president's tweet raising serious questions about whether the president obstructed justice. here's sarah sanders late today. >> look, the president knew that he lied to the vice president. that was the reason for his firing. >> the problem is, that is not at all what the president tweeted four days ago when he fired off this tweet. quote, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. the white house has made it very clear, president trump's tweets are, quote, official statements by the president of the united states. no matter who might draft, tweak, or actually type them. in this case, lawyer john dowd, the first person ever to take the blame for a presidential tweet. trump's tweet and sarah sanders' explanation simply are not the same. they contradict each other. they also don't match cnn's reporting. a source telling cnn that white house counsel don m

did things move forward markedly on friday with the plea from general flynn? >> definitely. and just to respond to the professor, i'm not sure i agree with him, but in any case, the impeachment we went through with richard nixon was temperature it inially moved forward by the actions of the special prosecutor at that time. the actions of mueller are critical. the statements of the president vis-a-vis are critical to moving the public, which will insist that congress act. and by the way, we're talking about obstruction of justice, but another crime came up during water gate where the president was told about a criminal activity, president nixon, and did nothing. and that was called misprisonment of a felony. if that tweet came from donald trump, if he ratified it and knew what it said and sent it out, and he knew that michael flynn had lied to the fbi, which is a crime, and he did nothing about it and, in fact, tried to conceal it and obstruct it by catching it a witch hunt, that could be a misprisonment felony. another crime. all the criminal activities or potential activiti

now, general flynn is a very key character here. he was with the president almost through the entirety of the campaign. outside the president's own family, he was one of his very closest advisers. so presumably if there is anything to know with regard to this investigation about any sort of actions by the president himself, by his family, general flynn would be a likely person to have that information. >> the president's legal team has insisted for some time now they believe the special counsel is going to wrap up this investigation quickly. does this new strategy now mean that perhaps changing his mind on the timetable? >> yes, that is also something that is suggested by this. it looks like they are hunkering in for what potentially could be a pretty long haul here. >> karen tamalty, "washington post," thank you. for more now on another segment of the mueller investigation, michael isikopf with yahoo! news and chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, senior fbi official, now an msnbc contributor. mike, let's start with you and the ne

a lot of people are saying general flynn is really, really acutely interested in protecting his son from being prosecuted. his son as far as i know just had his first child. he worked with his father closely at the flynn intel group. i get the human drama of this. what i don't get is how a person can trade their own information for somebody else's liberty. can you pass your get out of jail free card to somebody else? >> not typically. it's rare. i've seen it once or twice where and the government might be able to trade it freedom. now it's unusual. the point about the flynn i think this is important, rachel. a lot of people have been talking about how the muller team was leveraging the son or using the son to get to the father. they were playing one off the other. i don't think the pros cecutors thing that way. it might be the case that the child, the son committed a crime. and the fact that you're looking at him puts pressure on the father but you don't do it for that reason. you have to make an independent judgment about each defendant. here is what i mean. let's say you charge them bo

and then we get this this afternoon in a tweet from president trump saying, i had to fire general flynn because he lied to the vice president and the fbi. and the focus here -- the words -- the word "fbi" and flynn pled guilty and it is ashame because his actions during the transition were lawful and there was nothing to hide. he responded to questions about flynn. take a listen to this. >> are you concerned about what michael flynn might tell the special counsel. >> no, i'm not. what has been shown is no collusion. no collusion. there has been absolutely -- there has been absolutely no collusion. so we're very happy. and frankly, last night was one of the big nights. we'll see what happens. >> but flynn's guilty plea and his promise to cooperate with the fbi investigation raised serious legal questions. joining us, jeff bennett and ken delanie nbc intelligence and we have paul butler former prosecutor and professor at georgetown school of law. and jeff, the white house has been working hard on the reflection of the tweet. and we'll put it up again because the president brings up the wo

let's say general flynn ends up testifying in the paul manafort trial and paul manafort's words will be entitled to be told that part of flynn's deal is not actually in the agreement. part of the agreement is -- because that would geto the question of flynn's cull 3b89 and whether he's actually embellishing his had toimnt or hiding facts to protect his son. they would be entitled to know that. >> is that something he just does in a conference room with prosecutors? does he testify to the grand jury at any point? >> he could. the first thing is a praufer and that can be used for certain things. it can't simply be introduced in a case as an admission or confession by michael flynn. this is what he's testified to, ladies and gentlemen and therefore you should convict him of "x". if he later testifies inconsistently they can cross examine him with the fact he said something different. my ecpeckitation. if i'm bob mueller and i just heard it president of the united states imply he's thinking about a pardon for mike flynn, i'm getting mike flynn in the grand jury to testify under oath as qu

only after the ninth of february, when a newspaper revealed general flynn did discuss sanctions when t authorised to do so did pressure increase and michael flynn lost his job. michael flynn then became one key focus of the investigation into russia's attempts to influence the 2016 election and potential collusion with the trump campaign. the white house is now trying to distance itself from general flynn's actions and the lies he told the fbi, but there is no question that this latest development brings the russia investigation ever closer to the president himself. aleem maqbool, bbc news, washington. theresa may's deputy, damian green, is under renewed pressure tonight after claims that he accessed pornography on his commons computer. a retired detective says he found thousands of pornographic images on a computer in mr green's office nine years ago and that it was ridiculous to suggest that anyone else could be responsible. mr green, the first secretary of state, has again insisted that the allegations are false. our home affairs correspondent danny shaw has this exclusive report.