Big news, but understand that this in no way means Mueller is not going to call Flynn to testify against Trump (&c) down the line. *Any* review of Flynn's role in Trump's national security apparatus confirms that he's one of the most important witnesses in the Trump-Russia probe.
2/ A Flynn sentencing does suggest Mueller got—in 10 months—the info he needs or anticipates needing via Flynn. But the idea that someone getting convicted means you don't plan on calling them as a witness over the course of a long investigation/sequence of prosecutions is false.
3/ Public info suggests at least 4-8 more major indictments in this probe. Flynn will be a key witness should any of these proceed to trial or, as the case may be, impeachment proceedings. He'll be subpoenaed and, if he contradicts anything he told the feds, face perjury charges.
4/ By the time he's sentenced, Flynn will have provided the feds a full year of unfettered access to everything he knows. One should assume the volume of information he has passed on is massive, and therefore his future exposure to perjury charges as/when he testifies is massive.
5/ Judges only allow sentencing hearings to be put off for so long. In a five-year federal investigation, a judge doesn't tell the prosecutor to put off sentencing for six years so the cooperating witness can testify at every trial in the conspiracy probe before he pleads guilty.
6/ Anyone saying Mueller is done with Flynn is saying that the most important witness in the Trump-Russia investigation was *not needed* at even a *single* trial, hearing or proceeding in the whole probe. That view doesn't demonstrate an understanding of Flynn's role in the case.
7/ The law is agile—there are many methods to delay a sentencing hearing in order to debrief a cooperating witness, then to allow him to enter a plea and receive a sentence, then to testify at future hearings and trials under penalty of perjury for contradicting prior statements.
8/ Flynn is a *top-level* Trump-Russia target along with Manafort, Prince, Kushner, Bannon, Trump Jr., and quite possibly Sessions. Any false claim that Mueller is done with Flynn is an *assertion* that there was nothing to the Trump-Russia probe *whatsoever* beyond Obstruction.
9/ One reason I do talk about the experience of writing a 500-pg. book for Simon & Schuster on the Trump-Russia investigation is that doing the work put me in the unique situation of knowing which witnesses Mueller could be done with and which witnesses he could not be done with.
10/ My legal experience acts as an adjunct to that research; I've never seen the mere fact of a defendant pleading guilty to a charge *equating* to that defendant never being called to testify in any case related to the facts to which he admitted. That's a defense lawyer's dream.
PS/ Imagine the *giant beach parties* that Prince, Bannon, Kushner, Sessions, *the entire Trump family* and many others would be throwing today if Flynn's upcoming plea *actually* meant Flynn will never be a witness against *any* of them. What sweet music to their ears that'd be!
