Why is the media ignoring this about Michael Flynn regarding his sentencing guidelines? [View all]

[Tom Rinaldo]

Michael Flynn entered into a plea bargain with the FBI. That is not quite the same thing as "only pleading guilty to a single charge." The entire basis of the type of plea deal that Flynn originally struck with the FBI was a reward for cooperating with the prosecution in ongoing investigations into matters that he could bear witness to. And what exactly does that type "reward" entail? It entails going easy on him. Specifically it meant only charging Flynn with a single count of lying to the FBI when they could have thrown the book at him. Michael Flynn had serious criminal exposure across an array of possible charges. The full scope of Flynn's behavior was criminally damning and well documented, and conviction on just half of the potential charges that could have been leveled against Flynn would have resulted in him drawing sentencing guidelines far more severe than the relatively moderate ones that Barr subsequently forced Department of Justice prosecutors to withdraw prior to his pending sentencing.

This is a legal charade that goes far beyond any argument over whether Flynn deserves greater leniency over the single count that he ultimately did plead guilty to. Precisely because Flynn promised to cooperate he was not charged with more serious counts of criminal behavior that could have landed him behind bars for decades. Because Flynn promised to cooperate the sentencing guidelines applied to him today do not reflect the enormity of the crimes that the FBI investigated him for. And it is because of the enormity of those crimes, and the evidence that prosecutors had against him, that Michael Flynn originally agreed to plead guilty of just one count of lying to the FBI, trading promised cooperation for subsequent leniency. And now Barr has the audacity to argue that the sentencing guidelines are too harsh to apply to a man who only stands guilty of one count of lying to the FBI, and after Michael Flynn failed to deliver on his end of the original bargain.

I went back and searched for more information on the potential charges Flynn was facing had he not promised to cooperate with the feds - a promise he failed to make good on. I found this in lawfareblog.com:

"...Reports of Flynn’s bizarre behavior across a wide spectrum of areas began trickling out even before his tenure as national security adviser ended after only 24 days. These behaviors raised a raft of substantial criminal law questions that have been a matter of open speculation and reporting for months. His problems include, among other things, an alleged kidnapping plot, a plan to build nuclear power plants all over the Middle East, alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) involving at least two different countries, and apparent false statements to the FBI. In light of the scope and range of the activity that reputable news organizations have attributed to Flynn, it is no surprise that he has agreed to cooperate with Mueller in exchange for leniency.

The surprising thing about the plea agreement and the stipulated facts underlying it is how narrow they are. There’s no whiff of the alleged Fethullah Gulen kidnapping talks. Flynn has escaped FARA and influence-peddling charges. And he has been allowed to plead to a single count of lying to the FBI. The factual stipulation is also narrow. It involves lies to the FBI on two broad matters and lies on Flynn’s belated FARA filings on another issue. If a tenth of the allegations against Flynn are true and provable, he has gotten a very good deal from Mueller."

https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynn-plea-quick-and-dirty-analysis

So because, on false premises, Flynn negotiated a sweetheart deal with the Feds that confined his conviction to just one relatively minor crime, the Department of Justice, under Barr, now argues that even the standard federal sentencing guidelines for that one crime are too harsh, because the crime itself was minor and his record is otherwise unblemished?

I expect that type of perverted reasoning from this Administration, but why aren't more legal pundits calling them on this?