Former Ethics Chief Suggests a Harbinger of Bad News for Jared Kushner

First of all, I’m a little hesitant to heed the word of anyone that dealt with ethics during the Obama administration. The association tends to lead me to believe they sucked at their job.

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But let’s approach this as a “what if” situation, where we allow some grace and consider that maybe Obama’s ethics czar Norman Eisen was just having a dry spell, but otherwise knows a thing or two.

Eisen responded to a New York Times report that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was cutting off the line of cooperation with White House lawyers, possibly signaling that he’d be working with Mueller’s team, or working on a plea deal.

Patterico covered that particular report yesterday.

Eisen tweeted out in response:

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He may have a point, as speculation-heavy as it is.

There have been multiple reports of Flynn’s concern that his son, Michael Flynn Jr. could be implicated in some way.

I believe Flynn was loyal to Trump, but if he had to choose between pulling Trump’s, or a Trump associate’s butt out of the flames, or saving his son, I still think he’d think of his son, first.

Besides his son’s possible culpability and what some believe to be unshakeable evidence against Flynn, there are other reasons for concern.

According to multiple outlets, he is under investigation for an alleged quid pro quo with the Turkish government, in which Flynn would have been paid millions of dollars in exchange for the extradition of a Muslim cleric living in the U.S.

Federal records show that Flynn did not register $530,000 he was paid during the 2016 campaign for work he did that the Justice Department said principally benefitted Turkey — a potential violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Flynn, just like former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is definitely dirty. How dirty, and how much of that dirt can be leveraged for bigger fish will have to wait.

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It’s important to note, Flynn’s ending of cooperation with Trump’s lawyers doesn’t mean for sure that he’s working with Mueller. There may have been a conflict of interest between the defense lawyers that necessitated stepping back.

The White House is continuing to claim innocence, stating confidence that Flynn has nothing on Trump or his immediate circle.

“I think [Trump] would be sad for them, as a friend and a former colleague, if the process results in punishment or indictments,” White House lawyer Ty Cobb told The New York Times in an interview last month, referring to Flynn and his son. “But to the extent that that happens, that’s beyond his control.”

Yeah, that’s what you said before he stopped working with you. I wonder where we’re at, today?

 

 

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