What does Flynn's guilty plea mean for Vice President Pence?

Maureen Groppe | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption AP explains Michael Flynn's court appearance AP reporter Chad Day recounts court appearance of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn says his guilty plea is in the best interests of his family and the country. (Dec. 1)

Corrections and clarifications: A prior version of this story misstated the status of Mike Flynn's legal case. He pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI.

WASHINGTON – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a theory on why he was replaced by Mike Pence as head of Donald Trump’s presidential transition.

Christie told reporters Wednesday he thinks his opposition to naming retired Army general Michael Flynn as Trump’s national security adviser was a “significant reason” for his ouster.

Putting Flynn in that sensitive position was a “big mistake,” Christie says, one that the country is paying dearly for.

Whether Pence himself also has to pay a legal or political price for his association with Flynn is not yet clear.

Flynn, who plead guilty this month to lying to the FBI about prior contacts with Russia’s ambassador, could have evidence that Pence knew more than what he’s said. So far, Pence’s regular response to revelations about interactions between Flynn and other members of the Trump team with Russian operatives is that it’s news to him.

“Don’t forget Flynn may well have highly incriminating evidence about VPOTUS Mike Pence, who claimed that Flynn misled him about (Russian Ambassador Sergey) Kislyak,” Harvard Law School professor Laurence Tribe tweeted after Flynn pleaded guilty. “Perhaps Pence wasn’t as clueless as he claims.”

Don’t forget Flynn may well have highly incriminating evidence about VPOTUS Mike Pence, who claimed that Flynn misled him about Kislyak. Perhaps Pence wasn’t as clueless as he claims. And we know a sitting VP can be indicted and convicted. Recall Agnew. — Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) December 1, 2017

But Andy Wright, who was a lawyer for Vice President Al Gore and for President Barack Obama, said it’s too soon to tell what Flynn’s guilty plea, and other developments in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, may mean for Pence.

“I think they have raised questions that Pence will have to answer,” Wright said. “But, right now, I haven’t seen anything that suggests his legal liability, absent more information.”

Pence’s office said he was not one of the top transition officials Flynn — who was the vice chairman of the transition — spoke with about his conversations with Kislyak. At the time of those conversations, which took place at the end of 2016, Pence was in Indiana with his family. (Pence’s son got married in Indiana Dec. 28, the day Obama signed an executive order imposing sanctions on Russia and Kislyak reached out to Flynn. In his plea agreement, Flynn said he discussed, on Dec. 29, how to respond to Kislyak with a senior member of the transition team who was with other senior leaders at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. When Flynn called Kislyak back, he asked the Russians not to escalate the situation.)

Pence, based on what he’s said were assurances from Flynn, asserted on CBS’s Face the Nation in January that Flynn and Kislyak did not discuss the sanctions.

Because the Justice Department knew about the call from surveillance of Kislyak, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates told the White House that Flynn lied about the nature of the calls so was vulnerable to blackmail. Flynn wasn’t dismissed until mid-February, after media reports of Yates’ warning. In Flynn’s resignation, he said he had “inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information.”

More: Full text: Here is what Michael Flynn is pleading guilty to

More: Trump tweet suggests he knew Flynn lied to FBI when he fired him

More: House conservatives ramp up accusations of bias against Trump in Russia probe

Pence has not been interviewed by Mueller. He also hasn’t talked to any of the congressional committees investigating Russia’s election interference. But Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Pence should testify before that panel.

“I want answers to some of the questions that logically flow from the Flynn guilty plea, such as what did he know about Flynn’s contacts with the Russians during the transition, when he was a very key figure,” Blumenthal told CNN Tuesday.

Even before Flynn’s plea agreement, Blumenthal was seeking answers from Pence. He sent Pence a letter at the end of November asking for information on the role Flynn played within the transition team on issues affecting Flynn’s lobbying clients.

“It is imperative that we learn the full extent of Mr. Flynn’s hidden lobbying for special interests or foreign interests while on the transition team and in the White House, as well as any undisclosed work he did for the Russian or Turkish governments, so that we may know his legal liability,” Blumenthal wrote.

Flynn had not registered as lobbyist for Turkish clients while working for them. He told the transition team in early January that the FBI was investigating his lobbying work, The New York Times previously reported.

Pence has maintained he only learned about Flynn’s work for Turkey from news reports.

After taking over the transition team, however, Pence was sent a letter by Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, raising questions about Flynn’s lobbying for Russia and Turkey. Cummings asked for information Flynn had shared with the transition about his work, and a signed assertion from Flynn that he did not have conflicts of interest.

Pence's office declined to say Friday why Pence did not respond to Cummings’ letter.

Wright, however, said that while many people are pointing to Cummings’ letter to Pence as evidence he knew about Flynn's involvement with foreign governments, it’s not clear how the transition handled incoming mail from lawmakers, and whether Pence saw it.

Pence’s attorney, Wright said, should be gathering all the documents that show a chain of knowledge — from the campaign, the transition and the White House — so he’s not blindsided by anything.

That includes any documentation about Pence’s role in the drafting of the letter laying out Trump’s reasons for firing James Comey as FBI director, an issue that could potentially lead to charges of obstruction of justice if Trump was trying to prevent the FBI from going after Flynn.

“I’d just want to know a lot more about the tick tock of what he knew and what he didn’t,” Wright said.

Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson said Flynn’s plea agreement “means you’re getting closer to Pence and Trump.”

“But it doesn’t mean you’ll ever get there,” she added. “I don’t know what Flynn knows. I don’t know what Vice President Pence knows.”

And while Pence could potentially be impeached for any revelations that come out, even if he isn’t charged with a crime, Levinson suspects the impeachment bar in the GOP-controlled Senate would be pretty high.

“I don’t see a world in which they would move forward on impeachment unless it’s something that is so bad that they feel like they can’t win elections,” Levinson said. “And if I’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s that that threshold of `so bad’ is so much worse than I thought it was going to be.”

Aside from any legal liability Pence could face, there’s his reputation to consider.

Every time one of Pence’s statements has come back to bite him — including his assertions that Flynn didn’t discuss sanctions with Kislyak, his explanation for why Comey was fired, his dismissing as “bizarre rumors” the suggestion that there were contacts during the campaign between Russian officials and Trump associates — he faced the charge that if he was not lying, then he was an “out of the loop dupe.”

“Is Mike Pence a fool or a knave?” Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King asked after Flynn’s plea agreement.

Mark J. Rozell, an expert on the presidency at George Mason University, said Pence has been able to protect himself somewhat by projecting an image as a bit of an outsider in the White House. That’s a strange role for a vice president, Rozell said, “except that he’s working for Donald Trump.”

While Rozell doesn’t think the investigations have seriously tainted Pence’s image, “suspicions are growing in some circles and it is not clear if he can long separate himself in the public mind from the president and the president's inner circle.”

Republican operatives, however, say Pence still has a very high trustworthy quotient, despite the number of times some of his statements have been undermined.

“Pence is a very careful person, and he is not someone who is going to say something and not mean it,” said Ron Bonjean, Republican partner at the public affairs shop Rokk Solutions. “So when he says that he was lied to, or his team has said that he was lied to, most Republicans, I say most people, take it as face value.”

Longtime GOP strategist Danny Diaz likewise said Pence is still widely viewed as a straight shooter.

“He’s someone who speaks with a high degree of credibility and consistency with regards to his views on matters,” Diaz said. “You have to measure an individual based on their record. And over many, many years, he is beyond reproach.”