"Yes, if we don't get what we want...I will shut down the government. ... I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I'm not going to blame you for it."
Los Angeles Times White House correspondent Eli Stokols reported Tuesday that President Trump "stormed out" of the Oval Office after his contentious meeting with Democratic leaders and threw a folder full of papers out of frustration.
“He stormed out of the Oval, walked into an anteroom just off the Oval Office and had in his hand a folder of briefing papers. And he just scattered them out of frustration — threw them across the room," Stokols said on MSNBC's "Hardball," citing his own reporting with White House officials.
The reality of what Mike Flynn knows about Russian sanctions (or rather what Trump knew) is becoming more verifiable, just as KT McFarlands’ scuttled ambassadorship may loom larger… Flynn’s sentencing plea at 178 pages is interesting for what it doesn’t reveal or won’t be until the other indictments drop.
Washington (CNN) The answer to one of the most critical questions at the heart of the Russia investigation may well lie in the grand hallways of Mar-a-Lago.
Did President Donald Trump know Michael Flynn talked about sanctions during his conversations a year ago with the former Russian ambassador? Or did the President's small circle of advisers keep it from him?
[...]
When Trump strode into Mar-a-Lago's Grand Ballroom last December 29, neither he nor his aides could imagine that day would come to haunt his presidency. But the decisions made during that period, as the President basked in the comfort of his retreat, still resonate a year later.
The answers may ultimately come from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, but the questions begin during that critical period in Florida.
www.documentcloud.org/...
2/ You may be most interested in Flynn's description of his cooperation. He spent over 62 hours speaking with Mueller's team, and produced documents on several occasions totaling thousands of pages.
There can be little doubt, after Mueller's filing, that he helped Mueller.
3/ What is most interesting to me is how Flynn's attorneys described his offense. They emphasize that Flynn (unlike Papadopoulos) was not warned that lying to the FBI is a crime and that unlike Van der Zwann he was not an attorney.
4/ His attorneys give the impression that he was tricked by the FBI agents, noting that he viewed them as "allies," but what the agents did was routine. Interviewees are not typically warned that lying to the FBI is a crime, and the FBI usually doesn't alarm the interviewee.
5/ Overall, however, his attorneys did a very job writing the memorandum, which isn't surprising because they work at a large, well-regarded law firm. They should be credited with convincing Flynn to set aside the wishes of some of his family members to fight Mueller.
6/ There can be no serious question that the sentence will be a great result for Flynn and that is due to his early and strong cooperation with Mueller. What remains to be seen is whether he will change his tune after sentencing, as Papadopoulos did. /end