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The transcript in the Mueller report from the voicemail that Trump's lawyer John Dowd left for Rob Kelner, Flynn's lawyer, after Dowd realized Flynn had likely cut a deal with prosecutors left out some possibly significant words. soundcloud.com/kadhim-shubber… … 
Seeming to chose his words carefully, Dowd lays out two possibilities, taking pains to distinguish them. 1. Flynn is cooperating and hence must leave the joint defense agreement. 2. Flynn is cooperating and is giving prosecutors information "that implicates the president."
Then Dowd says, "if it's the former" -- meaning the first possibility where Flynn is not providing information that implicates the president -- "remember what we've always said about the president and his feeling toward Flynn and that all that still remains."
I think a straightforward reading is that Dowd is saying that if Flynn is cooperating and leaving the joint defense agreement, then the president retains warm feelings toward him. But if Flynn is providing information that implicates the president, no warm feelings.
That seems like a much starker suggestion of a pardon in exchange for not implicating Trump than the report indicates. The report ellipses out the "if it's the former" and "on the other hand" -- the words that Dowd used to make a clear distinction between the scenarios.
Given that Dowd starts by saying he hopes to "state it in starker terms," it seems fair to conclude that he meant to establish this conditional: Cooperation without implication of Trump = warm feelings remain. Cooperation with implication of Trump: warm feelings gone.
Dowd is not that clear. But the upshot here is that this newly released audio suggests Dowd came closer to suggesting Trump might pardon Flynn in exchange for Flynn not providing prosecutors damaging information about Trump than we knew before.
Coverage of the Mueller report has emphasized how White House aides thwarted some of Trump's obstruction attempts. But this leaves out the ways in which Trump appears to have used his pardon power, in particular, to successfully hamper Mueller's probe. motherjones.com/politics/2019/…
