As It Falls

So how fares the only hope we have for all humanity?

Right now it's all on what Mueller can get out of Mike "On the Payroll to HOW MANY Foreign Governments?" Flynn. Via the Washington Post:

By taking a large fee from Russia for giving a speech in late 2015, Flynn appears to have violated a law that requires retired generals getting such payments to receive prior approval. (NOTE: that's ONE) He also was hiding the fact that he was paid more than half a million dollars by allies of the Turkish government to promote Turkey’s interests while advising the Trump campaign (he later registered retroactively as an agent of a foreign government; failing to register is a felony). (This may be TWO if the feds think Flynn's retroactive attempt was a fool's effort to avoid accountability) He failed to include payments from Russia on his financial disclosure forms and may have lied about it to investigators. (We're already at the Third Strike) During the transition, he managed to delay a military operation against the Islamic State that Turkey objected to while he was secretly receiving those Turkish payments, a story that has gotten strangely little attention. (This fourth allegation shows that, even though Turkey is an ally to the US via NATO, Flynn was operating on the payroll of Turkey against American interests) He was even reportedly involved in planning for a bizarre plot to kidnap the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen in Pennsylvania and return him to Turkey, for which Flynn and his son were allegedly to be paid $15 million. (This one is where they make a movie out of it with Will Ferrell and Keanu Reeves as the wacky kidnappers) 

In short, Flynn appears to have violated multiple laws in multiple ways and could be looking at the possibility of serious time behind bars. He may have information Mueller could use in a case against Kushner, Trump or others, relating to multiple strands of the investigation. He may know things about the campaign’s relationship with the Russian government or about an obstruction of justice case related to Comey’s firing...

So how does Flynn bring the whole circus tent down?

Remember this: Flynn is tied to nearly everybody linked to the Russian-trump conspiracy to hack the 2016 elections, including Pence, who served as the transition leader after November, and had allowed Flynn to get picked for National Security Adviser. People who tried to warn trump and co. about Flynn - Christie, Sally Yates, others - were bumped out of trump's inner circle or fired. Flynn it turns out had been to various meetings with Russian officials and Putin allies alongside Jared Kushner, whose own dealings with Russia are under scrutiny as well.

If Flynn is cooperating now with Mueller, this suggests that Flynn has something worth in trade involving people further up the chain to trump himself. That points foremost at Kushner. Given how trump relies on Kush (his son-in-law) as a right hand man on nearly everything in his West Wing, if Mueller can bring charges on Kushner there's a good chance Mueller can flip him to testify.

Granted, having married into the trump mob, Kushner has little reason to betray his own... unless Mueller can prove to him that he's got enough on trump to charge (and convict) them both, in which case Kushner can roll over to get himself a deal. And there's a good chance Mueller has enough on trump given trump's own blabbermouth bragging how he Obstructed justice when he fired Comey. Anything else Kushner can give up will be adding on the bricks to the prison wall trump himself is building.

We're getting closer to the biggest and scariest step of them all: Mueller bringing direct charges against trump (and maybe some of the other high-ranking Republicans who had a hand in the 2016 elections). There's been reports trump wants to fire Mueller but can't because the bureaucracy is in the way. When push comes to shove, trump isn't going to surrender on this. He's bound to claim himself innocent and try to shut down every investigation into his dealings with Russia.

Then what happens? trump and his cronies will be aligned against nearly every Intelligence agency in the federal government: The CIA and FBI and NSA and so many others are already convinced by what they know that Russia meddled in our elections. The stuff that's been leaked by now is the stuff they can prove without violating national security rules: just think of what they know they can't tell the public. For any bias you may have towards the FBI or CIA or the "Deep State" you have to recognize that these are the men and women hired to defend this nation against the shadow threats. Most of them are genuinely doing their jobs, and most of them - by the look and feel of it - realize there is something nasty involving trump and the Russians.

What happens when our Intelligence agencies are in open revolt against a President they have evidence of dealing with foreign powers against our own nation? Which side will the Republicans in Congress take? Which side will the military, and state/local law enforcement?

How close are we to an actual civil war in our streets?