1/ Interesting new (sort of conspiracy) theory seems to be brewing on the right about the Michael Flynn guilty plea. It seems to run something like this: The Flynn case is before Judge Sullivan, who has a standing order that prosecution has to turn over exculpatory evidence.
2/ But in Flynn's case the plea was before Judge Contreras, who then transferred the case to Sullivan (for reasons not quite clear). Sullivan entered his usual standing order anyway. But this is thought to be very suspicious: Sullivan is making the government hand over
3/ exculpatory evidence under the standing order even after the plea already waived that right. The idea seems to be that Sullivan must have caught Mueller in a huge lie, maybe related to Strzok & McCabe, & that Sullivan is going to break open the whole corrupt conspiracy soon.
4/ If I understand how these cycles work, the Mueller conspiracy that Judge Sullivan is claimed to be on the cusp of exposing will be trending on Twitter soon, so I figured you might want to know what it's about. /end
5/ Right on time, reports of the conspiracy hit Trump's favorite show, Fox & Friends, this morning. Watch: insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/20/jud…
6/ Thanks to readers for pointing to this very good thread explanation of what is actually happening. A must-read.
7/ When this is all over, it will be interesting to go back and reconstruct who fueled the conspiracy theory, how it gathered steam, etc. It's an interesting cycle that should get more media attention.
8/ Sean Hannity just spent a few minutes talking about it on his radio program.
9/ We now seem to have the first discussion of the story from a news source (as compared to opinion/commentary), this piece in @thehill. thehill.com/policy/nationa…
10/ Note that @thehill's piece is reporting on the controversy. It's a news piece about how some people are alleging wrongdoing, and then it quotes some experts saying that they don't see the basis for the claim. Still, it's in the news cycle now, let's see what happens.
11/ Rush Limbaugh also covered the story today, closely following the Federalist story by @ProfMJCleveland that fueled a lot of the speculation. Here's the transcript: rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/02/…
