All of this occurred AFTER the election of Donald Trump, before his inauguration, when Trump was president-elect and had designated Michael Flynn the incoming National Security Advisor. Flynn and Trump had traveled together and worked closely through the final 30 days of the campaign, with Flynn opening for Trump at numerous rallies. As a result the two leaders bonded on a personal level.

It should come as no surprise that Flynn would be, and is, stunned by the president’s betrayal.

The FBI learned of Flynn’s perfectly-legal outreach to the Russian ambassador. They then conducted an early-morning armed raid of General Flynn’s office, at which Flynn spoke to them respectfully, but without a lawyer. This was a set-up, an ambush meant to entrap the unwary general.

In the wake of the general’s plea deal, the president rubbed salt in Flynn’s wounds when he tweeted, “I had to fire general Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”

The president’s tweet is highly problematic, and seems to contradict his previous statements on Flynn, especially after the president had said he fired Flynn because Flynn lied to Pence.

Former acting Attorney General Yates says she told the president that Flynn lied to the FBI.

It could be argued that if Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI that his statements to Comey during the private meeting could be construed as obstruction.

One of the president’s lawyers dived on this grenade, claiming he crafted the tweet – not a place you want to be.

To my knowledge, Trump is the only person that tweets from his personal Twitter account.

The president’s lawyers, abetted by General John Kelly and General H.R. McMaster, are are walking him to the gallows. Their strategy of giving up all executive privilege and turning over all documents and counting on the fairness of Robert Mueller is naïve at best, and could be terminal.

The president must pursue a more vigorous offense.

It’s important to know that the underlying events in which Flynn was engaged were LEGAL. They were NOT criminal activities in the least. It is mystifying why a general would need to lie about a perfectly-legal action – the outreach to the Russian ambassador for purposes of setting a meeting is most assuredly within the parameters of his job, and arguably he would be remiss had he not been setting such a meeting.

One can only speculate that the person who instructed Flynn to make the call, also instructed him to tell no one about the contact.

Flynn may have been concerned about the political atmospherics of this legal outreach, unsure whether he would be betraying the confidences of the president-elect and what would certainly qualify as executive privilege, given the context. Flynn’s inaccurate statements to the FBI could easily be chalked up to a political calculation, however his lie to the vice president is vexing.

Flynn is a “chain of command” guy – he would have followed orders. Very clearly, someone instructed Flynn to contact the Russians. That same person more than likely told him to tell no one about this contact. Remember this is all in the context of the ginned-up and ramping-up “Russian collusion” meme the Democrats had already been pushing for months at this point.