This is the particularly troubling aspect of the op-eds and interviews now being presented by former federal prosecutors; in order to squeeze this document into a narrative which makes this appear as bad news for the president, they must forget how they used to practice law. Aside from the fact that none of these former prosecutors would have submitted such a sentencing memo if the information was leading to further prosecutions, the language that they zero in on as “remarkable†is, in fact, very standard and formulaic. Every cooperator is described as giving “substantial assistance.†Every offense is described as “serious.†Moreover, Mueller’s recommendation of no jail time is completely unsurprising. The sentencing guidelines for his offense is so low that only 0-6 months is recommended, even with no cooperation. As cooperation ordinarily results in a sentence below the guidelines, you cannot go any lower than zero. Any other recommendation would violate the basic principle of cooperation agreements.
There is one final aspect to cooperation that may be quite applicable here, which nobody has mentioned. Substantial assistance is not required to be incriminating. Sometimes, where the government is proceeding to a full investigation based on an erroneous premise, a cooperator can save the government the expense of a fruitless inquiry and the diversion of effort from more promising work. If Flynn provided Mueller with truthful information helping to establish that there was no collusion or other wrongdoing in the campaign, this would also be considered substantial assistance, warranting a recommendation of no jail.
While many would like to interpret Mueller’s memo as an ominous harbinger of bad things to come for Team Trump, when viewed through the perspective of an experienced federal criminal practitioner, this is quite unlikely. The media’s predictions would require us to assume the Mueller and his team are completely disregarding all normal DOJ policies and procedures regarding cooperators. Given the strategic rationale behind these policies and procedures, this is an unlikely scenario.
https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/893327/573
