The NPR Politics Podcast - Special Counsel Says Flynn Is Cooperating; The State Funeral For George H.W. Bush

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

The feds say former national security adviser Michael Flynn has provided "substantial" aid in the Russia investigation and beyond. Plus, former President George H.W. Bush was remembered as "a great and noble man" by his eldest son, former President George W. Bush, at a solemn but joyous state funeral at Washington National Cathedral. This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, Congressional correspondent Scott Detrow, justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hello, my name is Matthew Smith. I live in Guangzhou, China, where your podcast is blocked by China's Great Firewall. But don't worry, there are ways to get around that. This podcast was recorded at 2.12pm on Wednesday, the 5th of December. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Thanks. Enjoy the show. Whoa, that's pretty amazing. The Chinese internet firewall can be breached. That's newsworthy. VPN for the win. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. The special counsel's office has told a judge that Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, does not deserve prison time. And former President George H.W. Bush was eulogized at the Washington National Cathedral this morning.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Carrie Johnson. I cover the Justice Department. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And there were some pretty incredible moments at President Bush 41's funeral this morning. But before we get to that, we have some news. We got a glimpse into the Russia probe last night through some court filings. Carrie, can you describe what it told us? Well, Michael Flynn has provided substantial

assistance, including firsthand accounts of people inside the Trump campaign and Trump transition and their interactions with Russian officials. And Michael Flynn has been so helpful that they don't think he should receive any prison time when he's sentenced December 18th. So some other things stand out about this memo. One is it seems to indicate that the Russia investigation is not the only investigation that Flynn is helping with. Exactly. The memo talks about Flynn helping with the heartland of the Russia probe, which is links or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. But it also talks about a redacted criminal investigation that Flynn has been helping with, an ongoing criminal investigation. We don't know into who or what.

And also another investigation, which may or may not be this obstruction of justice or false statements we've been talking about centered on the White House and people in the Trump orbit for over a year. So much of this document is redacted. I mean, huge, big chunks of black lines. What do we think is behind the redactions? I mean, what is it that we don't know from this? And one thing that stood out to me is that the commas weren't redacted so that we knew that they were talking about multiple investigations. Well, people have made a cottage industry out of trying to figure out how many letters and spacing and font sizes and what these materials are, you know, give me a break. We're going to find out when we find out. These things have been kept secret for over a year. Remember, Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI

on December 1st, 2017. And he and his legal team, his expert legal team, I might say, have kept these secrets, as has the special counsel. So we're going to find out. But what we think is that this is a roadmap to what else they've been looking at and other things they may have passed on to U.S. attorney's offices. What they did tell us in this document is that Michael Flynn has met with the special counsel or other people inside the Justice Department 19 times over the last year. And you don't meet with somebody for 19 times without there being something to say. Right. That's like we learned that Michael Cohen had met with them for 70 hours. Mara, we cover the White House. Michael Flynn was there for a hot minute. Can you just remind our audience who he is and why he might matter so much? Michael Flynn was the first national

security advisor to President Trump. He didn't last very long because it turned out that he lied to Vice President Pence about meetings he had with the Russian ambassador and whether or not he discussed lifting sanctions when he had those conversations with Ambassador Kislyak. Michael Flynn was also a very ardent Trump supporter during the campaign and had a prominent speaking role, not just on the campaign trail, but at the convention. We do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law. Lock her up. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Lock her up. You know why we're saying that?

We're saying that because if I, a guy who knows this business, if I did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today. Well, and before that, we should note that he had a very long military career. He led the Defense Intelligence Agency. And then he had sort of a falling out with President Obama. And it was sort of like up or out. And he was out. He left service in the Obama administration, disaffected with Obama.

And from all accounts, the Obama administration was disaffected with him. And he became a big Trump surrogate. And in fact, the outgoing administration was alarmed at the prospect that Mike Flynn would enter the White House as the national security advisor. Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general, warned this White House about Flynn and warned that he could pose some kind of counterintelligence risk, that he was subject to blackmail because he had lied so much about his contacts with Russia. And President Obama reportedly also told President Trump not that, you know, bad idea, don't do this. And he did anyway.

Fast forward. Michael Flynn has now pleaded guilty to a felony and become a chief cooperator against the Trump administration. And the fact that they are not recommending jail time means that they must have gotten something super useful from him. Absolutely right. And I'm waiting to hear on December 18th just how useful that may have been. Well, OK, so this is today, Friday. It turns out is going to be a very big day. I didn't even realize all the things that are happening Friday. But Carrie, you have them on a list. I have them on a list and I've begun carb loading in anticipation of Friday. Because it could be like a marathon day. It could be a marathon day.

Here is what we expect so far. Unlike Michael Flynn, who's been a good cooperator, a white hat, according to the government, we're going to find out on Friday from the special counsel all the ways in which Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign chairman, has been a bad cooperator. Authorities say he's basically blown up his plea deal and they're going to tell us what he lied about and what other crimes he may have committed while he was allegedly helping authorities over the last month or so build cases against other people. Paul Manafort could be in big trouble. We'll find out more about that on Friday. And then the other thing we're going to find out is how helpful Michael Cohen, President Trump's personal lawyer, has been

to prosecutors because Cohen's going to be sentenced in New York later this month as well. And there's one other thing. Last but not least, the former FBI director, Jim Comey, who was fired by President Trump last year and who's firing basically precipitated the appointment of the special counsel Bob Mueller. Jim Comey is being hauled up to Capitol Hill to do closed door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Comey didn't want to do it closed door, but he extracted some kind of promise from the House Republicans that he'd be able to talk about his testimony after it happens. And that they would give him the full transcript. Yeah. So we may get that transcript within 24 hours or less of that testimony on Friday. Wow. All right. Well, big day coming. And the good news, dear listeners, is that we will do another podcast on Friday.

Good times. Good times. So, Carrie, we are going to let you go and we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, the funeral of President George H.W. Bush. Bye, guys. Thanks. A labor strike, an iron ore mine, the KKK, Martin Luther King's Birmingham campaign. What bound all those things together? You can find out this week on the Code Switch podcast. And we're back.

And we have Scott Detrow here with us. Hey, Scott. How's it going? The state funeral for President George H.W. Bush took place today at the Washington National Cathedral. Both of you were watching it. What are your first reactions, your initial reactions to it? You know, this this caps a long week of ceremonial events. There's one event after another and they're all individually meaningful, but they start to blend together. There's a military honor guard at the airport.

There's a motorcade through Washington, D.C. President Bush's body was lying in state in the middle of the Capitol rotunda from Monday through today. It was really moving to see Americans waiting in line, streaming through the rotunda and seeing him. So what struck me today was that a lot of the speakers talked about Bush's place in history, talked about his presidency, his life, and all the things that you hear when a former commander in chief dies. The thing that struck me the most was George W. Bush's eulogy. This is only the second son of a president to become president. But despite the fact that they both shared that office, his eulogy was so personal. He was speaking a son talking about his father in a very moving, but also pretty funny way.

To us, he was close to perfect, but not totally perfect. His short game was lousy. He wasn't exactly Fred Astaire on the dance floor. The man couldn't stomach vegetables, especially broccoli. And by the way, he passed these genetic defects along to us. You know, there was so much humor today. It started with John Meacham, who was George H.W. Bush's biographer, talking about how Dana Carvey, who, of course, was the comedian that

impersonated Bush, said the way to impersonate Bush was to channel Mr. Rogers trying to be John Wayne. I mean, there were so many. And he told the story of the time that George H.W. Bush went. He was campaigning in New Hampshire, very frenetically, as he did everything else in his life. And he told the story of the time that George H.W. Bush went. He was campaigning in New Hampshire, very frenetically, as he did everything else in his life. And he shook the hand of a department store mannequin. And when somebody pointed out, hey, that's not a voter. It's not even a person. He said something like, well, got to ask. Never hurts.

The former prime minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, who served at the same time as Bush, was telling several funny stories as well, including talking about Bush sitting through his first NATO meeting and slowly realizing as the meeting went on that the smaller the country was, the longer the leader talked at the meeting. And Bush is kind of saying, wait a second. Wait a second here. So Alan Simpson, who was George H.W. Bush's great friend and one of the funniest people to ever serve in the United States Senate, was talking about George Bush's character traits, including humility. He said, those who travel the high road of humility in Washington are not bothered by heavy traffic, which was pretty funny. But he also said that George Bush never lost his sense of humor and he never, ever could deliver a punchline. My life in Washington was rather tumultuous. I went from the A socialist to the Z, and never came back to the A.

In one dark period, I was feeling awful low, and all my wounds were self-inflicted, all of them. And George called me early one morning, always early in the morning, country music playing in the background, and he said, Aha, I see the media is shooting you pretty full of holes. Actually, he said it a bit more pungently than that. And he said, why don't we go up to Camp David?

You and Ann come over and we'll have a weekend together. At that time, his popularity rating was 93%. Mine was 0.93 percent. That is a theme that came up again and again in this service was about how important friendships were to him and maintaining those friendships. That's right. And in his private life, but also in the way he governed and the way that he dealt with world affairs. He was on the phone constantly, writing notes constantly, and really got to know world leaders, which is pretty helpful when you put together

an enormous international coalition to go into war, among other things. Right, and this was a time to really celebrate a man's life and the considered more complete reflection on the things he did good and the things he did that were not so good will come later, I think. And there's one other clip that stood out to me from Alan Simpson. In a way, it is a contrast to our times, but he never put that final point on it. He never hated anyone. He knew what his mother and my mother always knew. Hatred corrodes the container it's carried in.

Very similar funeral for John McCain in the same cathedral about three months ago. A lot of the same people there. Same people, same processions, same general roadmap for how the service went. Of course, a big difference with this funeral is that President Trump was invited when he was there. The Bushes made it clear that despite all their differences, they wanted President Trump at the funeral, even though he wasn't going to speak. Still, though, you can't paper over the reality that much. And it was really awkward when President Trump walked down the aisle and took his place along that row of former presidents. And he leans over and shakes hands with

former President Obama, Michelle Obama. And that's it. And that's it. And then everybody's looking forward. And they had all been talking before. They stopped talking. Everybody looked forward. There had been all this rapport.

And then it was just like, OK, now we're facing forward. And that was such a contrast to when George W. Bush walked down the aisle. He would have been sitting with them. But, of course, it was his father. So he was seated on the other side with his family. He processed down behind the coffin, went over, shook President Trump's hand, Melania Trump's hand, the Obama's hands, went down the line to everyone. And then remembering how viral he went last time, he produced a mint, grinned and handed it to Michelle Obama. And that viral moment happened at John McCain's funeral where he passed this mint,

or she passed a mint to him. Wait. He passed the mint to her. Okay. And I think now they are locked in for the next 20 years when George W. Bush sees Michelle Obama, he will be pulling a mint out of his pocket, I think. You know, when I was younger, I hated funerals, didn't want to go to funerals, thought they were a terrible thing and avoided them as much as I could. And then at some point I realized that memorial services are life affirming. They aren't sad by their nature. They make you appreciate life and the person's

life well lived. I think we should just go out on a little bit more of George W. Bush's eulogy for his father. They will say that George H. W. Bush was a great president of the United States, a diplomat of unmasked skill, a commander-in-chief of formidable accomplishment, and a gentleman who executed the duties of his office with dignity and honor. In his inaugural address, the 41st President of the United States said this, we cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood, and town better than he found it.

What do we want the men and women who work with us to say when we are no longer there? That we were more driven to succeed than anyone around us, or that we stopped to ask if a sick child had gotten better and stayed a moment there to trade a word of friendship. Well, Dad, we're going to remember you for exactly that and much more. And we're going to miss you. Your decency, sincerity, and kind soul will stay with us forever. So through our tears, let us know the blessings of knowing and loving you, a great and noble man, the best father, a son, or daughter could have. And in our grief, let us smile knowing that Dad is hugging Robin and holding Mom's hand again. The state funeral of George H.W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States.

We will be back tomorrow with our weekly roundup. Until then, you can send us your timestamps for the top of the show. Just record yourself on your smartphone and email them to nprpolitics at npr.org. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover Congress. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.