Now that Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation has concluded there was no Trump-Russia collusion, the prosecution of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn "appears all the more heinous," contends an analyst who urges the president to pardon and restore his former national security adviser.

David P. Goldman, writing for PJ Media, pointed out that Flynn was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 when the agency blew the whistle on CIA backing of "Arab Spring" Sunni Islamists fighting the the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad. The CIA-backed jihadists later formed a considerable portion of ISIS.

"Flynn humiliated the bungling CIA and exposed the incompetence and deception of the Obama administration, and got fired for it," wrote Goldman, who urged President Trump to pardon Flynn.

"The Deep State feared Mike Flynn, with good reason. Trump should reappoint him to a top job, and really terrify his opponents," he said.

Goldman said Mueller "forced Flynn to plead guilty to an invented charge of lying to FBI agents, even though the FBI agents who interviewed him about Russian contacts said that they thought he was telling the truth."

He said that if the proper authorities "turn over the CIA's rock and examine its underside, the result will be the exposure of an intelligence failure of galactic proportions."

Intel community hid exculpatory evidence

In January, John Solomon reported for The Hill that evidence undercutting the charge that Flynn was a Russian stooge had been kept secret by the U.S. intelligence community.

That silence was maintained even when former acting Attorney General Sally Yates publicly claimed Flynn was possibly "compromised" by Moscow, Solomon reported.

America, he said, would have a much different opinion of Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in the case, if Republican Sen. Charles Grassley's request to release the exculpatory information had been grante.

Instead, Flynn's communications with Russian officials were characterized by some media outlets as treasonous, and then-Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota declared Flynn posed a "danger to this republic."

Solomon said that, according to his sources, the evidence shows that before Flynn made his infamous December 2015 trip to Moscow as an adviser for the Trump campaign, he alerted his former employer, the DIA.

Flynn then attended a briefing in which he was alerted to possible efforts by his Russian host to compromise him. He also was briefed on how to extract intelligence for U.S. agencies such as the DIA, Solomon reported.

Upon his return from Moscow, he briefed intelligence officials in various meetings.

Solomon concludes: "Rather than a diplomatic embarrassment bordering on treason, Flynn’s conduct at the RT event provided some modest benefit to the U.S. intelligence community, something that many former military and intelligence officers continue to offer their country after retirement when they keep security clearances."

Solomon added that it's important to recall that at the center of the Russia collusion narrative is the belief that Flynn was prepared to compromise America's security in an effort to work with a foreign power to "steal" the election.

"Would the central character in a Russian election hijack plot actually self-disclose his trip in advance?" Solomon asks. "And then sit through a briefing on how to avoid being compromised by his foreign hosts? And then come back to America and be debriefed by U.S. intelligence officers about who and what he saw?"

Solomon also notes it's unlikely that the prosecutor in the Mueller probe would have recommended little or no prison time it Flynn had compromised national security.

Solomon acknowledges that by Flynn's own admission, he misled the FBI and Vice President Pence about the fact that he discussed sanctions in a December 2016 conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And, among other failures, he didn't file proper foreign-lobbying paperwork for money he received from Turkish sources.

"But there is ample evidence now that the event that many 'Russia collusion' cheerleaders have cited as the start of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Moscow was, in fact, something very different."