UPDATE
ABC News suspended reporter Brian Ross for a month for stating that Flynn had testified that Trump told him to contact the Russians during Trump’s candidacy; Ross was the only source for that information, which turned out to be wrong. In fact, Trump only reportedly told Flynn to talk to the Russians just before taking office as president, post-election.
ORIGINAL
On Friday, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI about speaking with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in order to convince Kislyak to lay off of backlash against new sanctions on Russia in the waning days of the Obama administration. He apparently escaped charges with regard to financial payments from foreign sources, including the Turkish government, which led people to believe that he would flip on other members of the Trump administration.
And that appears to be the case. Flynn says he will now testify against other members of the administration.
Flynn had resisted doing so for months, given his close ties with the Trump administration. But he apparently felt abandoned by the administration in recent weeks, thanks to “mounting legal debts and plans to sell his house to help defray costs,” according to ABC News.
According to ABC News:
That isn’t grounds for a collusion charge — having contact with the Russian government does not mean that actual information exchanged hands with the goal of influencing the election. Campaigns regularly have outreach with other nations’ leadership.
However, the fact that Flynn’s charges are so light suggests that he may in fact have dirt to spill. Otherwise, we’re looking at special counsel Robert Mueller charging Flynn in a Scooter Libby scenario — charging him for the lies rather than any underlying crime, in an attempt to rope others into charges for lying to the FBI rather than any underlying crime.
