The media treatment of the Russia investigation is more and more resembling the horse-race coverage of an election. And I think that’s leading to some gaps in the coverage. 1/
The coverage is now centering on the Mueller legal maneuverings (where’s Mueller going, what’s he thinking) by scores and scores of great legal experts. That leads to important insights, such as the significance of meeting w/ Flynn for 19hrs. But... 2/
It also gets redundant and means we lose track of what actually happened. Legal experts aren’t necessarily tracking the story arc of Michael Flynn. And so there’s a ton of focus on his cooperation but little discussion of what Flynn actually did. 3/
But what Mueller revealed yesterday was in effect confirm what had been suspected about Flynn based on past press reporting. This is a hugely significant! But many legal analysts aren’t tracking that closely. 4/
For instance, Flynn as Nat Sec Advisor, was indeed acting as an unregistered FOREIGN AGENT. This had major implications. During the transition, he vetoed Obama’s offer to arm the Kurds (and t/f take the blame from Turkey) before Trump took power. OMG! slate.com/news-and-polit… 5/
Flynn’s extensive cooperation also means that he had a lot of info on Trump-Russia cooperation. Yet there was almost no talk of how he came to have that info... 6/
There was little/no mention of Flynn’s back story his ties to Russia before joining the campaign. Attending the RT gala w/ Putin, going to GRU HQ as DIA Director, taking Russian money. 7/
Lastly, Flynn is also perhaps the central figure in the possible payback. Did the Trump admin seek to end sanctions to in effect pay Russia back for its campaign interference? The memo says that did indeed happen and is why Flynn lied to the FBI about his calls w/ Kislyak. 8/
That’s huge! But that was largely missed. 9/
The danger w/ too much of a horserace legal focus is that we lose the thread of what’s at stake. A bit like election horserace coverage losing the thread of the policy implications of an election by emphasizing who’s up and who’s down. 10/
This isn’t to say at all that the legal analysis isn’t absolutely essential and enlightening. It is! But it c/d also be better balanced w/ discussion/analysis of the larger narrative about what happened. 11/11
