Trump Thinks Flynn Is No Snitch Despite All His Snitching

The president has gone nuclear on his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. But, for some reason, Michael Flynn stays in his good graces.

Asawin Suebsaeng, Erin Banco
12.19.18 4:37 AM ET

Over the past few months, two main players in Donald Trump’s universe have been collaborating with federal prosecutors investigating the president. But while the president has all but declared war on his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, he has bent over backwards to remain publicly on good terms with his first and fired National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, going so far as to wish him the best of luck before his sentencing hearing on Tuesday.

The niceties have sparked a fair amount of speculation about what both Flynn and Trump’s actual endgames may be, including after Tuesday when Flynn’s lawyers shockingly agreed with Judge Edward Sullivan to delay sentencing. But to hear allies and associates of the president tell it, the answer is rather simple: Flynn, it is assumed, is not a snitch, even if all contemporaneous evidence suggest that he probably is.

“We hope [Flynn] tells the truth and hope he gets no jail time, or little jail time,” Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor now serving as a lead Trump attorney for the Robert Mueller probe, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. Giuliani claimed that the president hasn’t given him any indication that he suspects Flynn to be a turncoat like Cohen was, and instead insisted that “President Trump felt bad that Flynn got jammed up” in this.

For Trump diehards, Flynn’s ability to retain a cult-hero status reflects a larger point about the president: He appreciates loyalty and values those who don’t air grievances in public. Though Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities, been exposed as having been a foreign agent during the presidential campaign, and offered extensive cooperation with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, his MAGA credentials remain solid because he joined the Trump campaign relatively early and has stayed quiet when he got in legal trouble.

“The president remembers loyalty, there’s no question—and Gen. Flynn was loyal early on,” said Jeff Lord, a former CNN commentator and an early political supporter of Trump’s. “Anybody who sticks up for Donald Trump, he will remember it. He’s very good at that.” Lord should know. In June 2013, he authored a pro-Trump American Spectator column—an article Trump read and remembered and for which he has kept Lord in his good graces even up until today.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-thinks-flynn-is-no-snitch-despite-all-his-snitching?ref=home