Donald Trump had to be feeling the heat from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation even on Thanksgiving, with the news breaking that lawyers for former national security adviser Michael Flynn have stopped communicating with Trump’s own lawyers about what’s going on with the probe. Thursday afternoon the New York Times reported that:
Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
That agreement has been terminated, the four people said. Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.
The Washington Post followed up with a report that the call from Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, to Trump’s lawyers came on Wednesday evening (Happy Thanksgiving, guys!), and that Trump’s showboating ideologue attorney deflected:
Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, said, “This is not entirely unexpected.”
“No one should draw the conclusion that this means anything about General Flynn cooperating against the president,” he said, adding, “It’s important to remember that General Flynn received his security clearance under the previous administration.”
And he received the title of national security adviser under Donald Trump.
Mueller appears to have gotten a lot of information from flipping the comparatively low-level Trump adviser George Papadopoulos, and Flynn, looking at the indictment of Paul Manafort and thinking about not just his own legal exposure but the legal threat to his son, could potentially offer up much, much more.