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Don Lemon Tonight

Robert Mueller Recently Filing the Sentencing Memo for Michael Flynn; No Jail Time for Michael Flynn; Redacted Documents Released to the Public; A Recent Development in the Russia Investigation. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired December 04, 2018 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[22:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Process crimes are important. It's important to be truthful to the FBI when they're engaging in an investigation.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: Mrs. McCord (ph), thank you so much. I don't want to violate your privacy about what you know and what you can't say, but your perspective on this is important, and I appreciate it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

CUOMO: All right. Be well.

Thank you for watching. A lot to get through. Big breaking news. "CNN TONIGHT" with Don Lemon will pick up the story right now. What a big headline tonight. It is not over, Don, and the special counsel thinks that Michael Flynn should not go to jail.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Yes, and it looks like I don't think it's wrapping up. Everyone says, it's wrapping up. It looks like it's just starting. I've got the memorandum right here. You've been going over it. We're going to go over it.

Actually, Chris, it's not a really good day for this president, for this administration. We'll talk about all of that. Nice job on the breaking news, Chris. I'll see you tomorrow.

This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon.

Here's our breaking news. The filing that we have all been waiting for all day finally out. Here it is. Robert Mueller's sentencing memo for fired Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, raising a number of significant questions, and it gives us clues to what may be an investigation that expands even further than we know.

So, let's take a look at all of this because as you can see, a lot of this is redacted information. Take a look at your screen. A lot of it's redacted. So, you have to read between the lines here. But what isn't, it tells us a lot about what Michael Flynn knew and what the special counsel now knows.

So, here's what we know, OK? And we're going to go through it throughout this broadcast. Flynn was interviewed 19 times, 19 times by Mueller's office or attorneys from the Department of Justice offices, from the DOJ offices. And what he told them provided substantial assistance in a criminal investigation.

Intriguingly, though, the rest of that section is completely redacted. We know he provided firsthand information about interactions between the Trump transition team and Russian government officials and that several senior members of the transition team publicly repeated false information given to them by Flynn about his communications with the Russian ambassador.

And there's more. We know Flynn's early cooperation was particularly valuable because he was one of the few people with long-term and firsthand insight, and his guilty plea likely led to other witnesses coming forward. We know that because all of it is in this memorandum, which is why Mueller is recommending no prison time for Flynn, because he was crucial to the information they got.

This is huge. This is huge. One of the biggest developments so far in this investigation. And we've got a lot more to come on all of it. Part of a really terrible day in the myriad legal problems and entanglements of this president and his associates. And it's not just the Michael Flynn news.

There's the news that Trump, his confidante, Roger Stone, will plead the Fifth in response to a request from Senator Dianne Feinstein and the judiciary committee for documents and an interview. Pleading the Fifth. I seem to recall the president saying something about what it means when somebody pleads the Fifth.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Have you seen what's going on in front of Congress? Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fifth Amendment. Horrible. Horrible.

The mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?

When you have your staff taking the Fifth Amendment, taking the Fifth so they're not prosecuted. I think it's disgraceful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Catch that? The president said the mob takes the Fifth. It makes you wonder about him just yesterday praising Stone for keeping his mouth shut. And in another legal case that hasn't gotten as much attention but could prove hugely significant, there's bad news tonight for the president.

Subpoenas to the Trump organization as well as five federal agencies as part of the lawsuit over Trump international hotel in D.C. Here's what the suit claims, that Trump is in violation of the Constitution's ban on government officials accepting payments from foreign governments. They want revenue statements. They want tax returns from the

president's businesses. He's not going to like that. Like I said, not a good day for President Trump, and we are waiting for another shoe to drop regarding Paul Manafort on Friday.

So, there's a lot to get to. Let's bring in Sara Murray and Shimon Prokupecz with much more on our breaking news, the breaking news about Michael Flynn, the sentencing memo. Good evening to both of you. Shimon, I'm going to start with you. You've had a little time to digest this. What's your biggest takeaway from it?

[22:04:59] SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: I think, Don, you put it correctly, the information here that Michael Flynn provided was crucial and it's possible that this investigation would not have been able to move forward without Michael Flynn.

And how we know that is really by these two words that the special counsel -- that Mueller and his team write about, substantial assistance. That is everything. That tells you how important his cooperation has been here. When they list the ways in which he cooperated, right, you're talking about a criminal investigation that we know nothing about and appears to have nothing to do with the special counsel's office. That's an outside criminal investigation.

The assistance that he provided the special counsel's office is extraordinary. When you think about it, he provided help with links in coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign.

You know, we talked about this criminal investigation that he's providing information on. He's also providing information about links, about people that connected to the campaign that may have been communicating with Russians, all of that.

This is certainly the heart of the special counsel's investigation. And it's quite clear when you read these documents that he was central and he came in early. He came in early to them. He was willing to cooperate from the beginning. He helped perhaps bring other people in to cooperate.

And so, what you see here is that without him, you're really starting to see how important Michael Flynn has been to the special counsel's office.

LEMON: Yes. They said he provided firsthand information about interactions between the Trump transition team and Russian government officials and on and on. And they said officials with the Trump team repeated the falsehoods that Michael Flynn had put out there.

I want to read this for you, Shimon, because the addendum -- it says, because the addendum includes sensitive information about ongoing investigations, the government is seeking to partially seal the addendum and has files publicly a redacted version of the document that excludes the sensitive information. So, who's going to see the unredacted version? The judge? Who else? PROKUPECZ: That's right. The judge certainly has it. He has this in

his possession, and that's important because the judge is the one that's going to decide ultimately the sentence. The special counsel here is saying that they would be fine if Michael Flynn did not serve any jail time.

The other person or people who have this information would be his attorneys. Michael Flynn has this information and his attorneys, and that should be about it. Really no one else should have access to this information because these are ongoing investigations. That's what's important here.

And I think, Don, your point about that this is not over, I mean that's what these documents are saying. And that is why a lot of this information has been redacted. That is why we can't see a lot of this information, because there are still ongoing investigations that Michael Flynn is part of and still, to this day, being helpful on.

LEMON: Yes. If you read it, it's not a long document, but it has very substantial information, especially about the lies that they claim Michael Flynn told them and that was repeated publicly by the administration.

Sara, I want to ask you about this. Mueller is saying that Flynn cooperating early helped to get others to cooperate. He says -- let's see -- that because of his early cooperation, that others cooperated and because of that, they were recommending a very low -- his early cooperation was particularly valuable because he was one of the few people with long-term and firsthand insight regarding events and issues under investigation by the SCO, meaning the special counsel's office.

And then it goes on there, and it says, additionally the defendant's decision to plead guilty and cooperate likely affected the decisions related to -- of related firsthand witnesses to be forthcoming with the SCO and cooperate. So, take us through that.

SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it tells you just how valuable Michael Flynn is because when you talk about him being a long-term and firsthand witness, you know, they're saying this is someone who witnessed the arc of the campaign, witnessed the discussions that were had during the transition, the other people who were part of those discussions, other people that, you know, Flynn may have relayed his conversations with the Russians to in the transition. And then what happened when all of these people got to the White House.

So, he is a firsthand witness to these events, and he can sort of draw this narrative from the campaign into the White House, and he can also implicate other people who were involved in those conversations, were knowledgeable about those conversations.

Now, none of those people, of course, are named here, but the special counsel does note that the fact that Flynn cooperated early probably inspired other people to cooperate. And by that, you know, they mean that Flynn has now been cooperating with the special counsel's office for over a year. We know very little still about everything that he shared with them, but it was very public.

Obviously, this plea deal, people knew he was cooperating, and that would have potentially inspired other people who had conversations with him, who were privy to these conversations to say, OK, we need to be honest with the special counsel. It's very clear that Michael Flynn is in there, and he's talking.

[22:10:02] LEMON: OK. I got another quote for you, Sara, and it's about the documents. "The defendant provided firsthand information about the content and context of interactions between the transition team and Russian government officials."

It said, "For example," all right, "after the election the defendant communicated with the Russian ambassador to the United States as a representative of the transition team on two sensitive matters. The United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution calling for Israel to seize settlement activities in Palestinian territory and the Obama's imposition of sanctions and other measures on Russia for interfering in the 2016 election."

"Several senior members of the transition team publicly repeated false information conveyed to them by the defendant about communications between him and the Russian ambassador regarding the sanctions." He's offered some corroborating evidence, right?

MURRAY: Yes. What they're saying is there's a paper trail here, which of course, you know, is concerning if you were any other member of the transition team. You were copied on that paper trail. That means Mueller knows that you were somehow involved in these conversations.

But I think it also sheds light on how Mueller has tried to build these cases, especially the cases that he plans to take to court. You know, we saw when Paul Manafort went to trial, that they provided all of these documents, and then they put his deputy, Rick Gates, on the stand and said, look, this guy has lied about all kinds of things, but pay attention to how what he is saying matches exactly with the documents.

And I think that's what Mueller's team has to do in these cases when you're talking about witnesses who have been publicly been caught lying, who have had to strike a plea deal because they lied to investigators. You need this kind of paper trails to show, look, what these witnesses are saying, they're sort of creating the narrative around what this paper trail shows you. It all lines up.

LEMON: Sara, Shimon, thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Here's the big mystery in this. See this right here? See that one? It says the defendant has provided substantial assistance in a criminal investigation, and then the rest of it is redacted.

We've got a lot more coming on our breaking news tonight, and we've learned more from Mueller's sentencing memo for Michael Flynn and why the special counsel is not calling for jail time for Flynn.

[22:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: Here's our breaking news. A huge development tonight in the Russia investigation. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, releasing his sentencing memo for Michael Flynn, and it is full of clues to what Mueller knows and where the investigation will go next.

I want to discuss now with my Legal Analysts, Jack Quinn, Asha Rangappa, and Renato Mariotti.

So good to have you on. So, let's go through this, OK?

Renato, you first. Mueller says that Flynn has given, and this is a quote, "substantial assistance and is recommending no jail time." What kind of information would he have had to give Mueller to get that kind of a deal?

RENATO MARIOTTI, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: One of two things, Don. Either would have had to help Mueller make a case, make a charge against somebody that he otherwise wouldn't have been able to do to make a charge on, or he would have to provide information that would greatly or significantly increase Mueller's odds of getting a conviction as to somebody that Mueller might have otherwise charged.

So, that part you were holding up before the break with all the redactions, that very well may contain information about a criminal case that Mueller is going to bring due to information provided by Michael Flynn.

LEMON: OK. And it talks about why it's redacted, right? They said because it's still ongoing. So, Asha, listen, there are significant redactions. Renato just said that, in the filing released to the public. Mueller refer, he refers to multiple investigations, including a criminal investigation, and then it's redacted right after that. What do you think he could be referring to?

ASHA RANGAPPA, CNN LEGAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I don't want to speculate, but obviously there is a criminal investigation that is separate from the Mueller investigation, and that is one thing that jumped out at me, because if it's something that is actually occurring in a separate jurisdiction the way that he farmed out the Cohen case to the southern district of New York, it starts to fit in with this pattern where Mueller is, you know, handing off pieces that may not fit in directly with his mandate.

But those are being pursued by other parts of the Department of Justice, other U.S. attorney's offices, and this is important. The president needs to know that means that if he fires Mueller, this will not go away. There are pieces of it that will continue to live on. I believe Mueller's investigation will live on regardless as well. But it is now expanded.

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: You think that was a pretty crafty thing for him to do?

RANGAPPA: Well, I think that it's both, you know, crafty and strategic if he's trying to spread it out, but it also could mean that this investigation is just so big that, a, his team can't handle all of it. And, b, that he is respecting the parameters of his mandate.

You know, we keep hearing that he's crossed this red line. Well, it looks like he's not crossing red lines. He is understanding where those lines are, but when he sees things that may be a violation of the law, he's giving them to the appropriate offices that should pursue them.

OK. So, Jack, listen, I'm just looking here because Rudy Giuliani responded. This is what he's telling NBC News. He says, "There is a Yiddish word that fits," he said. They don't have bob case -- they don't have bubkes. He downplayed any concern about what Flynn may have had. If he had information to share with Mueller that hurt the president, you would know it by now."

And then here's what he said to Fox News. He said, "Rudy Giuliani likens the offense in the Flynn guilty plea to spitting on the sidewalk with major repercussions for many."

So, what kind of statements are these? Do they show a lack of preparedness here?

JACK QUINN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think it's bubkes, OK? I'm not sure if that's an apt use of that term. In Brooklyn, we call it something else.

LEMON: It starts with bull?

MARIOTTI: Yes, it starts with b.

QUINN: Yes. I mean, look, they have persistently engaged in, you know, denying. No matter what they say, deny it, deny it, deny it. And I think this is just more of the same.

By the way, I think -- and I know you've pointed out a couple of times this part that says that Flynn also provided substantial assistance in connection with this criminal investigation.

[22:20:02] But I think there are three parts to this section of the memorandum. And, in fact, I think there are at least two places where one might see the third caption, either in the middle of page four or in the middle of page five.

LEMON: It says where the defendant is also, has also provided useful information concerning and then redacted?

QUINN: Yes.

LEMON: Is that what you're talking about?

QUINN: Yes. And I think--

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: OK. That's page four. What do you think of that?

QUINN: I think that the section of the addendum that addresses those -- that part of the investigation, which was a third part, is summarized either on page four or page five, as I described, under what I think is clearly a caption that's blacked out.

So, I think there's something else there. The fact that both the caption and the whole body of it are redacted, I attach some significance to. And I think that this probably -- well, if Rudy is paying attention, I think he would be very concerned about what that might be. Because there's little hint of what it might be.

LEMON: So, all right. So, one thing that isn't addressed in this filing as far as we know is anything to do with Comey and possible obstruction. Remember, you know, Trump wanted Comey to let the whole Flynn thing go--

QUINN: Yes.

LEMON: -- and he said, you'll see yourself into -- you know, your way into letting this go. So, what do you think, Renato? Do you think that's part of what's redacted here?

MARIOTTI: I don't actually. I think this is something totally different. So, you know, what the--

(CROSSTALK)

LEMON: I do too. I don't think this has anything to do with that. I think there's something else that involves that. This is something else, but go on.

MARIOTTI: Exactly. You know, that Comey piece is -- you know, Trump was asking Comey to let Flynn go. But, you know, Flynn doesn't necessarily have information about that because Flynn is -- you know, Flynn is the one he's trying to help at that point.

What I think here is Flynn provided information that is allowing Mueller to make a criminal case against someone. We don't know who that is. We can speculate or not speculate. But there's certainly somebody out there who has a criminal case that could be coming.

And one thing I can say for sure based on this is the reporting we've seen from some folks -- I know Michael Isikoff and others, saying that Mueller is about to wrap up or just tying the loose ends, that does not appear to be accurate.

LEMON: OK. So, Asha, let me ask you about this because the filing says, "The defendant's false statements to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian government emissary, the requests he conveyed to the Russian government through that emissary, and Russia's response to those requests were material to the FBI's investigation into the nature of any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign." Is this central to the entire case?

RANGAPPA: I think it is significant. Let's -- and I'm glad that you read that passage because I wanted to highlight that and the fact that he notes that it is material. That's an element of a false statement charge, but I think it's significant because let's remember what Mike Flynn was doing at that moment.

This is after President Obama expelled 35 Russian spies who were here under diplomatic cover as punishment basically for Russia's interference in our election. As a former FBI agent who did counterintelligence, it is extraordinary to PNG, that's making them persona non grata, just one diplomat. To do it for 35 is huge.

And you have this person, you know, under the table saying don't worry about it. Don't react. And, you know, the Trump administration has said, well, we were allowed to do that. We're coming in, except that they lied about it, and then other members of the administration continued to lie about it.

So, the question is why was this material to this bigger investigation? It is a part of a bigger scheme. Whether there was a quid pro quo, whether this was something that had been arranged in advance or there had been previous communications remains to be seen. But I do think that it is central.

LEMON: I also think it's interesting -- and we're going to come back after the break. I'll let you jump in on that, Jack. But it was just interesting to me when they talked about his military service and that he served in the military for over 33 years, including five years of combat duty, led the defensive intelligence, retired a three-star lieutenant.

The defendant's record of military and public service distinguished him from every other person who has been charged as a part of the special counsel's investigation.

But then he goes on to talk about how people who are in public service, especially if they are representing the presidency, the office of the president of the United States, they should be held to a higher standard.

Some of the supporters of this president and Michael Flynn will say, is this the way you treat a member of the military who has served his country? The member of that military did not have to lie to the FBI.

[22:25:07] We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Robert Mueller's team in their filing with a federal judge late tonight cited Michael Flynn's early cooperation with the Russia investigation, calling it particularly valuable.

Back with me, Jack Quinn, Asha Rangappa, and Renato Mariotti. So, let's continue on with the theme. And Jack, I know you want to weigh in so let me ask you this. I just want to read a little bit more from the filing.

So, the filing talks about, and this is page five if you guys want to follow along, it talks about the history and characteristics of the defendants and senior government leaders should be held to the highest standards. That's the short quote, but I just want to -- it talks about his

history and characteristics as a member of the military who served with honor, as a three-star lieutenant general. I want to point that out, and said "the defendant's extensive government service should have made him particularly aware of the harm caused by providing false information to the government as well as the rules governing work performed on behalf of a foreign government."

[22:30:00] And then it goes on to say the defendant deserves credit for his accepting responsibility in a timely fashion, substantially assisting and described by the (Inaudible). It talks about that. But it's saying that he should know better. And a defense that the government or this -- the Mueller investigation is somehow targeting this man who had this honorable service and didn't do anything wrong.

He has admitted, and he's pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. That's not a defense, Jack.

QUINN: I agree 100 percent. It has always troubled me that somebody with his particular background would have, A, had these surreptitious communications with the Russian ambassador. Again, this guy ran the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was part of the intelligence community. How he thought he could have these communications with the Russian ambassador and not be overheard has mystified me.

And it just has struck me that in connection with this filing that, you know, it is conceivable that Flynn kind of took a bullet for the team here. And, you know, sort of knew that he was going to -- well, he knew there was a fair chance he would be caught when he lied to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Because it seems so inconceivable that he wouldn't.

And I just wonder if going back to this whole question about obstruction and whether this plays into it and plays into the Comey firing. I will remind you that at the time, there were reports that the President and General Flynn remained in contact. So there were communications between them. And, you know, it's -- at least to my mind, at least worth thinking about whether or not it's possible that there were some communications that were inappropriate.

Whether between the President or perhaps somebody else at a senior level of the White House.

LEMON: Yeah. You know, Asha, in this memorandum, the Special Counsel is referring to Flynn. But I mean he could be referring to senior members at the White House as well, to Trump and folks at the White House, saying that government officials should be held to a higher standard.

RANGAPPA: Absolutely. You know though I am sure one of the defenses, as things come out, is that well, these people had no experience. That was kind of what was the White House defense when some of the obstruction investigations started, that he didn't really know how the government worked and how the FBI and Department of Justice worked.

I do want to emphasize, Don, that as far as the idea that they have just gotten Flynn for lying because there was nothing else. To me, this filing makes clear that they could have also charged him as being an unregistered foreign agent. You know Michael Flynn retroactively registered as a foreign agent for Turkey, and so he was, during the campaign, knowingly acting as an agent of a foreign power.

And what this filing makes clear, in addition to undermining a sitting administration, as I mentioned before, by talking to Russia secretly about sanctions, is that the filing makes clear that he's also violating a Democratic principle of transparency. That if you are out in public, you are working in a campaign, and you are opining about foreign policy, that the American public ought to know that you're being paid by a foreign government to do that.

And so I think that this is going to be a recurring theme, this sort of echoes what we saw with the Cohen plea that the President was negotiating a deal without disclosing it to the public, while having views on Russia. Are these crimes? Maybe, maybe not, I mean the foreign agent piece is. But, you know, transparency should be something that we're concerned about from a democratic and from a national security perspective as well.

LEMON: Yeah. So listen, let's talk about that, Renato, because she just mentioned it. And to add this to it, Sally Yates, she was the one who went to the White House to warn them that Flynn could be compromised by the Russians. And then fast forward, now, you know, we're here talking about the Russians potentially have the kompromat over Trump for not revealing he was working on this Moscow deal that Asha just mentioned. That's pretty incredible.

MARIOTI: It is incredible, Don. And I agree with what Asha just said. You know Flynn, to me, not only did he commit crimes. And I agree with Asha. There are other crimes that he committed, at least, at the very least, registering -- failing to register as a foreign agent. It seems to me the deal he got here was essentially being charged with this instead of something else.

But I've got to say Flynn has exercised such poor judgment from day one. And really to me, it's emblematic of the entire administration. You know Flynn was the guy at the National Convention for the Republican chanting, lock her up. I mean here you have a man who is, you know, a General, a person who has intel experience, who certainly has experience with how our justice system works.

[22:35:08] Chanting that the opponent -- the political opponent of the President should be, you know, thrown in jail without any due process for something that has never been charged as a crime before in that manner. So to me, the fact that that guy -- I agree with Asha, is inserting himself and interjecting himself in a Presidential campaign, talking about foreign policy when he's being paid by another government to be their advocate.

It shows such colossally poor judgment that it's not really -- it's really surprising that he got himself in criminal trouble. And you have to wonder why the heck was this guy chosen to be our National Security Adviser when there were plenty of other choices. And Chris Christie and others put forth a short list of names that didn't include Flynn.

LEMON: Well, we only have so much show to get to. Those are deep questions. Thank you, Renato. Thank you, Asha, Jack as well. I appreciate it. Robert Mueller says Michael Flynn provided substantial assistance to prosecutors. Are there parallels to Watergate?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:00] LEMON: So this is the breaking news tonight, a huge development in the Russia investigation. Robert Mueller says former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has provided substantial assistance -- that's a quote -- to the Russia investigation, and he recommends no prison time for Flynn. Let's bring in Frank Bruni, Douglas Brinkley, gentlemen, good evening to you.

So Frank, Mueller got 19 interviews from the President's National Security Adviser on top of 70 hours that he got from his personal attorney.

FRANK BRUNI, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Right.

LEMON: Two things. How do you think the President is going to react to this? And if you're in the White House, what are you saying right now?

BRUNI: Well, in terms of how he's going to react. I guess the witching hour for Twitter is tomorrow morning, right? So maybe we'll have our answer then. I suspect we'll hear the phrases witch hunt and hoax. I think the President has already reacted to this. If you look at what he's done in recent weeks with tweets saying that Mueller and his team were bullying witnesses and threatening them, and making them say certain things to get off the hook.

That's the sort of umbrella prophylactic reaction, you know, advance reaction that's meant to cover the Michael Cohen situation. That's meant to cover the Michael Flynn situation. I think he'll just continue that theme of saying you cannot trust whatever Michael Flynn said in those 19 interviews. And that's a big number that we have to pay attention to. These investigators aren't just wasting their time when they talk to someone.

If they talk to someone for 19 different times, it means something, right? I mean -- so I think if you're in the White House, you have to look at that number and you have to be nervous. You have to look at one other number, which is zero. That's the number of days they're recommending he spend behind bars. And this isn't a lawyerly term.

It's a layman's one. But that's a thank you. That's saying you did well for us. Thank you very much.

LEMON: Yeah.

BRUNI: Yeah.

LEMON: The information must have been good because we're going to let you off, because they could have provided longer sentencing. And I've got to say, I don't think -- I am not an attorney, but it's not legal, I guess, to spread false information to the public. Because they're saying members of the team repeated the falsehoods of Michael Flynn.

BRUNI: Right.

LEMON: To the public.

BRUNI: Right.

LEMON: Basically spreading disinformation.

BRUNI: Right.

LEMON: Doug, you know, the memo says that Flynn provided substantial assistance to prosecutors. Are there parallels to how this is unfolding, this investigation is unfolding in the past to, I don't know, Watergate?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: There are great Watergate parallels. But remember in Watergate, we had Sam Urban Committee, and there were public hearings. And information would be aired in public. That's how we found out about the Nixon tapes. That's how, you know, how John Dean really became famous. In this case, we're getting this sort of drip, drip, drip coming out of the -- kind of scraps of the Mueller report, redacted documents that we're all kind of trying to read what's really going on.

Watergate, however, was about things in the United States, domestic concerns. I think with General Flynn, Jared Kushner could be one of the prime people that I would be worried, should be worried tonight. Because Flynn and Kushner were kind of a dog and pony team international. They were going to create their own, you know, the breaking of the Logan Act, to create their own foreign policy, cut their own deals places.

Israeli settlements were mentioned in the document released tonight. And I think we might have to separate Michael Cohen from Flynn, in the sense that Flynn and Cohen don't have a lot of interaction. But Flynn and Jared Kushner had a ton of it. And it's not just Donald Trump that should be very worried tonight. It's a significant evening. But I think the pressure on Jared Kushner must be immense right now.

LEMON: Let's talk about that separate criminal investigation. It says Flynn is also helping with a separate criminal investigation. That's to you, Frank. Any idea what that could be about? And the rest of it's redacted. You saw it. It's just like...

BRUNI: Yeah, no. I mean I don't know what that is. But it sure is one of the most tantalizing details. I think its investigations plural, right?

LEMON: Yeah. It says the defendant has provided substantial assistance in a criminal investigation.

BRUNI: In a criminal investigation. Yeah, well, I mean Doug mentions Jared Kushner. I don't know if that's what it's about. But I think it's important to bring that name up because there was an alliance there. It's also important to note that Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn, both very close to the President at different times and in different ways. So they have different tranches of information to offer Mueller and his team.

Michael Flynn is not just someone who is a drive-by figure in the campaign. He was there for much of 2016. He was someone who introduced Trump at rallies. He led the chants of lock her up. He was a Foreign Policy Adviser. He was integral, and if not the chief figure in the transition. So this is not just any old person in the administration.

This is a very, very close aide who had a view of things, particularly on the international front. And that's another thing they're paying attention to in the White House and worried about.

[22:45:00] LEMON: Doug, before I let you go, I just want to -- there were so many redactions in this document. That -- what show exactly what Flynn told them, and they say they can't reveal more because investigations are ongoing. To me, it doesn't seem like Mueller has, you know, is about to close this investigation. It seems to me like he has a long way to go. I could be wrong. M What do you think?

BRINKLEY: I agree with that completely. This is just really the opening salvo going on right now before the holiday. There's no way this is wrapping up soon. This is just starting to unspool itself. And, you know, tonight imagine you're one of the people whose names -- you're thinking maybe am I one of the redacted names. It's going to create a wave of paranoia around people in the Trump orbit.

And you know particularly wondering, you know, where this is headed. And Friday, we're going to have Cohen, all cameras on, finding out more about Cohen. So it seems to me Donald Trump's under siege from two fronts, Mueller and New York southern district.

LEMON: Yeah. Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it. We've got a lot more on our breaking news tonight. Revelations from Robert Mueller's sentencing memo for Michael Flynn, and what we've learned about Flynn's connections with Russia.

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[22:50:00] LEMON: So here's the breaking news tonight, Robert Mueller filing the sentencing memo for Michael Flynn tonight. In that document, Mueller says Flynn provided firsthand information about interactions between the Trump transition team and Russian government officials. Susan Glasser, Evan McMillan (sic) both here to discuss, good evening to both of you, so good to have you on, Susan, I am going to start with you.

Evan McMullin, did I call you Evan McMillan? Sorry about that. So let's talk about Michael Flynn's connection with Russia. How deep do they go and how much does he know potentially? I mean I am thinking back to that. Look at this. This is December 2015. This is video, in the photo at an RT dinner in Moscow. And he is seated right next to Vladimir Putin, Susan. SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: And he was paid for that

appearance as well, which has always something that struck me, Don. And I am glad you brought this up because you know, Donald Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, when Flynn was essentially his main Foreign Policy Adviser throughout the 2016 campaign. Donald Trump was speaking about Russia, suggesting his openness.

And in fact, his desire to change our relationship with Russia, didn't question him why we had imposed sanctions after the annexation, the illegal annexation of Crimea by Vladimir Putin in 2014, suggesting that he would lift it after it. As you know, there was the change in the Republican platform in the summer. Michael Flynn was there for all of that.

And I think this filing today, it suggests first of all, there's extreme relevance to the special prosecutor in what happened after Trump's shocking election in November and December, and then of course, into January of 2017. But in November and December of 2016, Flynn was the key person who was taking the campaign foreign policy and beginning to turn it into a Trump administration policy.

And obviously, they were signaling in every public way that they planned to overturn the Obama administration's policy on Russia, that they were open to lifting sanctions. And that seems to be very relevant to what the Special Counsel is investigating right now.

LEMON: Yeah. It's in this memo. But here -- this is the mystery. Numerous redactions here, Evan, and do you have any idea, any ideas about what could be covered there?

EVAN MCMULLIN, FORMER CIA OFFICER: You know I hate to speculate about something like that. I don't know. There could be a myriad of things. But I will say this. In addition to Susan's comments, which I agree with, you know, Flynn was yes, an advisor to Trump and he was a close friend. He became a close friend to Trump and to Jared Kushner. That's all right.

That makes him extremely significant, both during the campaign and then after the campaign, while he was with the transition and then the administration. But one thing that I think is maybe undervalued or underplayed a bit, is that, you know, let's recall that Flynn was an intelligence officer. He was a trained, talented, and then became a senior U.S. intelligence officer.

What the Russians did to us was an intelligence operation. It was an intelligence attack on the core of our democracy. And that's why -- what Flynn did in supporting a candidate who the Russians were helping through this operation so egregious. You know most of the national security community in the United States had identified what was happening and were opposing Trump and were speaking out about this by the summer of 2016.

But Flynn was going all-in on the campaign to help that effort. And that makes that cooperation, that assistance to the campaign and to the Russian attack on our country through in part of the campaign so egregious. But it also means that Flynn, as a trained and talented and experienced, very experienced intelligence officer, knew what he was looking at.

And so if he's now cooperating, as he has been for some time now with the Special Counsel, his ability to make observations that are obvious to him and to the Special Counsel but wouldn't be to other sort of political hands in Washington, and others who might have been associated with the campaign, including Trump's own family.

[22:54:54] But Flynn's ability to make very important observations about this intelligence operation against the country is hugely significant. And so those other investigations, I don't know what they are. But I imagine that Flynn is providing quite a bit of value.

LEMON: I just have a few moments left here. But Susan, I want to talk to you about this. If you're a Republican on Capitol Hill tonight, how are you feeling seeing this, thinking much more could be coming?

GLASSER: Well, first of all, you're hoping that, you know, either it gets over with quickly and without directly attacking the President, right? You know that many Presidents have survived scandals involving their aides, even close aides. Obviously, the National Security Adviser is a close aide. It's not the first scandal involving a National Security Adviser. Does it reach the President himself?

Does it reach into his family? I do think a number of people mentioned Jared Kushner. Obviously, Donald Trump Jr. was involved in the Trump Tower meeting. I just want to end by saying January 24th, 2017 was the FBI's first interview with Michael Flynn, at which he's accused of lying to them four days into the Trump administration.

The remarkable nature of this, the fact that a President was essentially entering office already under scrutiny with his top advisers, not only lying to top government officials within days and hours of occupying their offices, this is something. And pleading guilty to it, this is not a subject of dispute. This is extraordinary even by the standards of White House scandals.

We're already in territory it seems to me, in which the White House, the Trump administration from the very start was polluted by senior officials lying to the government.

LEMON: Susan, Evan, thank you so much. I appreciate it, lots more to come on our breaking news, including Robert Mueller's statement that Michael Flynn's cooperation encouraged others to be forthcoming.

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