The special counsel revealed a few intriguing tidbits, but kept a lot hidden.
Special counsel Robert Mueller dropped a heavily anticipated sentencing memo on Tuesday for Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about a year ago. You’ll quickly notice that the memo has large sections that were redacted — because they describe Flynn’s assistance with investigations that are still ongoing.
But there’s a lot in the text itself and between the redacted lines in the documents, amounting to four key takeaways.
First off, Mueller is quite happy with Flynn’s cooperation — happy enough to recommend that he serve no prison time. (This is a notable contrast to the positively scathing memo Mueller’s team wrote about George Papadopoulos, in which they said he did not provide “substantial assistance” and complained that he talked to the press.)
Second, Flynn is cooperating in not one but three different investigations — Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia, a separate criminal probe, and a third investigation of some kind. But most of the details of these other probes are redacted, including even the type of the third investigation.
Third, the cooperation Flynn provided to Mueller’s probe specifically appears to break down into two main areas. One focused on contacts between the Trump transition team and Russia, but we don’t know what the other one is yet.
Finally, the many redactions indicate that there’s still a whole lot going on behind the scenes that Mueller doesn’t yet want the public to know about.
The special counsel praises Flynn’s assistance as “substantial,” writing that a “sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration” for him would be “appropriate and warranted.
