I'm not a lawyer, but I believe the protocol in this case would be for Mueller to charge Flynn with everything he has on him, and then agree to drop all the other charges in exchange for the guilty plea. A number of people who have analyzed these cases in the media (Andrew McCarthy, for one) have explained how this whole approach by Mueller is highly irregular for this particular reason.
And in any case, there may also be an issue with bringing future charges based on the legal principle known as the "Entire Controversy Doctrine." Under this common law standard, any and all claims against a party must be brought at the same time, or they cannot be brought later. There are some exceptions to this, but I believe Mueller would not be able to bring charges against Flynn later that he didn't bring already.
That certainly sounds like what would be done normally, but this case has been conducted “off stage”. I see the “lying to the FBI case” as just a screen that both parties are quite willing to hide behind. The substance is not legality; my guess is that it involves foreign relations with Turkey (Erdogan’s obsession with a coup involving the US and Fethullah Gulen).
Wasn’t Flynn’s agreement made pre-emptively, i.e., BEFORE he was indicted on ANY charges? I appreciate your comments about the E.C.D. and will try to educate myself on the subject. The E.C.D. might indeed apply, but it seems odd that the prosecutor would be thus constrained by a defendant reneging on a pre-indictment plea deal. In any event, Flynn’s son has not been indicted or pled to anything at this point, so that leverage remains. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out.
In December, Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller to provide Flynn’s attorneys with any and all information that may have been withheld from the case.
So based on your "Entire Controversy Doctrine" comments, am I correct that you think this is why Judge Sullivan is demanding everything before deciding and cutting off Muellers ability to have another bite of the apple later?
If so, good for Judge Sullivan. It appears perhaps he has been through this same weed patch before with these slimy government hacks.
The Prosecution has to show up with everything. They can’t add tidbits here and there. They charged Flynn with lying. They can’t now say, he lied-but he also did this, that and the other thing. They could try to indict him on another charge, emphasis on TRY. Once it’s found out that the new charge, was part of the old case, no bueno. But, this is DC, so who knows what set of rules apply.
The Flynn case does not follow that pattern. The Flynn case looks like a case of pure prosecutorial discretion - abuse or not, or some lesser prosecutorial offense is in the eye of the beholder.
Second, the "Entire Controversy Doctrine" is a civil law notion. Criminal law works on different principles in this regard, generally governed by prosecutorial judgment and statutes of limitations. A given set of facts can't be used to try a person over and over on different criminal statutes that fit the fact pattern. But using Flynn for example, if he also perpetrated tax fraud, murder, and a host of other crimes, the prosecutor is free to sit on those cases while prosecuting a "lied to the investigator" case, because the fact patterns of the hypothetical crimes are not joined to the fact pattern that produces an allegation of lied to the investigator..