Tonight, all eyes are on the Nunes memo, which seems likely to be released tomorrow. But amid all the smoke and noise, various parties around the Internet have noticed that there may be other things afoot:
It was reported today that the Mueller team has announced that the sentencing of Mike Flynn has been “postponed”, due to the “status of the investigation”.
“Due to the status of the Special Counsel’s investigation, the parties do not believe that this matter is ready to be scheduled for a sentencing hearing at this time,’ the document, signed by Mueller and Flynn attorneys Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony, said.
“The parties shall file a joint status report by no later than May 1, 2018, stating whether the matter should be scheduled for sentencing or whether a deadline should be set for filing another joint status report,’ said a related order signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
That’s interesting. Also interesting:
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Rudolph Contreras took Flynn’s guilty plea on Dec. 1, 2017 ”“ but just days later, Contreras recused himself from the case.
A court spokesperson told Fox News that the courts do not disclose grounds for recusal.
The exoteric interpretation of this would be that Flynn’s still singing to Mueller about Trump/Russia collusion, and that it’s simply too soon to put the canary in the cage.
But given that all the fuss in Washington right now is about abuse of the FISA court to conduct illegal surveillance of the Trump team, there’s another possibility.
How was attention drawn to Flynn in the first place? By way of the FISA warrant. So here’s the esoteric version of the story:
If Flynn’s conviction depends on evidence gathered by a fraudulently obtained FISA warrant, and Mueller knows it, then Flynn must walk. Moreover, it is only by Flynn’s being charged in the first place with an actual crime that the FISA warrant is forced to come under legal scrutiny — for the possibility that it might be tainted evidence. If Flynn knew all along that illegal surveillance was underway, might he have set a clever trap by making false statements while being recorded, knowing that he was setting himself up to be charged with a “process crime” that would ultimately force the skulduggery out into the open? If this is correct, then it’s a very different set of people who are going to end up in trouble when Mueller finally puts his cards on the table.
Obviously I, an obscure and humble scrivener, have no way of knowing what’s really going on here. But it should be equally obvious that the braying media, on both sides of the aisle, don’t either. I think it’s also very safe to say that there is much, much more to this story than we will every know.
Of this, though, I think we can be sure: the next few weeks and months will not be boring.