Flynn Has Given Substantial Assistance To Robert Mueller's Investigation; Trump Team Braces For Mueller's Next Move After Flynn Filing; A Look at Some of the Finalists for the CNN Hero of the Year.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN TONIGHT. I'm Don Lemon. Anticipation building over what's next in the Mueller investigation in the wake of the Special Counsel's memo regarding Michael Flynn. Mueller's team has recommended Flynn serve no prison time due to what they called substantial assistance provided by President Trump's former National Security Adviser. It is impossible to know what Flynn has disclosed, but the Special Counsel's office called it valuable firsthand information in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Flynn is one of seven people who pleaded guilty in that investigation. And we'll learn more about another one of them, Paul Manafort on Friday in a new court filing from the Special Counsel expected to shed more, some more light on what the former Trump campaign manager did to breach his plea agreement. Lots to talk about. Anne Milgram is here, so is Josh Campbell and Steve Hall. Steve joins us have via Skype, by the way. Good evening. Thank you all for joining us here. Anne, I'm going to start with you. When you look at the Special Counsel's filing on Michael Flynn, is collusion still on the table you think despite everything we have heard from this White House?</s>ANNE MILGRAM, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. I don't have any question that -- I mean, look, we've been hearing for months now that the President and others have said there's no collusion -- there is no collusion and so I think that is their response to everything. The Flynn filing is telling for a couple of reasons. One it talks specifically about the Russia investigation. It talks about his assistance in other investigations, not one, but multiple investigations. And filing 19 meetings, that is a lot of meetings. He is got information on something important related to Russia. I mean, you just don't sit as a former federal and state prosecutor, you would not sit with somebody 19 times unless there's a lot there to learn.</s>LEMON: And take present time off the --</s>MILGRAM: And take and such in even no time.</s>LEMON: So the President likes to say no collusion, right. At one point he switched from, well if it was even collusion, that's not a crime, I mean, but what are we talking about? We're really talking about I think is conspiracy, right, is a crime?</s>MILGRAM: Exactly. Conspiracy is a crime. I think collusion is the shorthand, because they could be conspiring to be guilty of this crime, it could relate to the President doesn't have to have help to hack the actual e-mails that the Russian government was involved in hacking. It could be related to the timing of the release of e-mails, coordination with the Presidential campaign. There's so many different ways and so people started to shorthand it with collusion, but it basically means conspiring with somebody to do something.</s>LEMON: Josh, we cannot forget that President Trump recently fired Jeff Sessions put in the acting A.G. Matthew Whitaker who Democrats essentially see as a stooge. What's going on inside the Justice Department with Whitaker as it investigation just chugs along here?</s>JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So, you hit on it. Obviously he was the subject of a lot of reporting that we were doing. This baggage that he essentially brings to the office of the acting Attorney General and that is his past comments on the investigation actually being highly critical of Mueller. I think that and you know, this may be possibly a positive sign that the more Mueller is able to do his work, the more we see filings and the more we see documents, the more we see enforcement actions that tells us that Whitaker isn't necessarily trying to impede his work, because presumably as the person overseeing this, he would have to approve or at least know what's going on as Mueller moves forward. I suspect that part of that is because a lot of attention that was paid to his past making a lot of these statements known to the public essentially kind of boxing him in, that if he was brought in to take the legs out from under Mueller, now there's the giant spotlight on that. I think the last part, Don, is with this new Democrat House majority coming in he also knows that any action that I think he takes to impede Mueller's work is going to be subject to further investigation by House Democrats. We're not out of the woods yet, but I see this as a positive sign the more Mueller is able to do his work.</s>LEMON: So, Steve Hall, despite the redactions, Mueller does reveal that Flynn was helpful in talking about these links between the campaign and then the transition team and then the Russian government. What was Russia's end game here?</s>STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Don, I think Russia right now if anything is gnashing their teeth over how close they came to a truly to my view hair-raising possibility. Which is that, from the moment that Flynn lied publicly about what he talked about to the Russians, the Russians of course, knew that, because they were the one that he was talking to. Which immediately gives them of course, leverage over Flynn. That kind of leverage for somebody who is going to be the national security adviser to the United States of America inside the White House discussing not only the highest classification of information, but also the plans and intensions of the U.S. Government to have a spy, to have somebody they hold leverage over who is obliged to report back to them unless he wants his career to end, that is the stuff that movies are made of. It is absolute phenomenal for them to have that kind of spy inside the White House, which if this had continued it's possible that is what the outcome could have been. Again, it raises hairs on the back of my neck from a counter intelligence perspective, I can tell you.</s>LEMON: And Trump defended Judge Andrew Napolitano over on Fox news, says that he expects Don Jr. to be indicted. We played that sound in the last hour. We fixed -- there is a graphic there, we fix it to clarify what he said about Jared Kushner and Jerome Corsi. Here it is.</s>ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: The President himself should be extremely uncomfortable about this, not for his son or son-in-law as much as for himself.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So do you think that any of Trump's inner circle is now going to get indicted?</s>NAPOLITANO: Yes. I don't know who, but I do know that Donald Jr. has told friends he expects to be indicted.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you expect that he would be indicted?</s>NAPOLITANO: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what about Jared Kushner?</s>NAPOLITANO: I don't know about Jared Kushner. I think Jerry Corsi is going to be indicted. I don't know about Roger Stone. Of course, he is been advertising all over the place.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is basically begging for an indictment.</s>LEMON: So he expects Don Jr., he is not sure about Jared Kushner or Roger Stone and you know, what he said about Jerome Corsi. Do you agree?</s>MILGRAM: I think there's a few things that are worth pointing out. Don Jr. has apparently as has been publicly reported been telling people that he expects to be indicted. It's also been reported that he testified before Congress. He also gave statements to the FBI. We just saw Michael Cohen plead guilty for lying about the Trump tower in Moscow. It is all together possible that Donald Trump Jr. gave statements to the FBI that were false and as related to the Trump tower meeting with the Russian lawyer or as to other things. So I think it's very possible that there could be a false statement case that is brought against him. As for Kushner, Kushner is an important piece of the Michael Flynn arrangement. We don't know whether Kushner exactly what his liability may be, but there is something that happened early on before Flynn pled guilty. They interviewed Mueller team interviewed Kushner for literally an hour. And what they did -- they did that to lock him down on what Flynn was telling them. And so I've always been curious as to they did that very limited interview which probably meant that they had more to ask him, but they just wanted to see what he would say about what Flynn was telling them before they pled Flynn out. So there's more story for Jared Kushner. I don't know what it is. And again, we're all on the outside. But there are these little breadcrumbs that we're following and by the way, I agree completely on Jerome Corsi. I mean, there's no question that he was probably brought in and told look, here's what we're going to charge you with. You can plead guilty and cooperate. And so I don't think that will be a surprise.</s>LEMON: They will really are playing three-dimensional chess here, right? Josh, we learned that Flynn provided quote, documents and communications, to the Special Counsel. Are we will essentially being told he provided corroborating evidence?</s>CAMPBELL: So we don't yet no because again, this is so opaque. You look at the redactions and you look at all the things that Mueller is doing that we don't know. I will tell that in order for the government to actually agree to you know, plea dealing or let someone cooperate they have to bring something to the table. It can't be them coming and tell you something that you already know. They have to have some kind of utility. And a lot of times that includes not just what you saw and what you heard, but you have corroborating information, do you have e-mails? Do you have any other type of media, any type of evidence that we can use and not for nothing, that also includes evidence moving forward? So, we know that he was as part of this arrangement one of the stipulations that you know, possibly wearing a wire and all the things you would do with a person who is now working for the government. Again, whether that was able to lock in corroborating information in order to go after additional subjects, that we don't know, but we do know based on this and reading the tea leaves that he is of great utility to the government as indicated in that filing yesterday.</s>LEMON: Yes, because if you look at everything they said he did wrong, you know, like he lied and everything he is accused of doing lies and the sentence that he could have gotten, they say -- I mean, just think about that one. Steve, so you look at this from a counter intel point of view. A lot of people are wondering how a man with Flynn's background could have a fall from grace like this one. How does this happen?</s>HALL: It's an excellent question. There's a theme that is been emerging a little bit that I've read and seen a little bit about how maybe the fact that you know, Michael Flynn was a former military officer, former general officer, all of a sudden he had you know, a moment of conscience and that is what he is being rewarded for. You know, in my experience, integrity is not something that just sort of deserts you. You either have it or you don't. And I think the course of his career will show you that yes, there were good things that did he, but there was an integrity problem all along. Yet real problems at DIA and at the end of the day is a military intelligence officer. He should know so much better than having these types of dealings with the Russians. So, to say that there was something to do with his loyalty as an American soldier, I think denigrates other American military intelligence officers and indeed the U.S. Military overall. He is doing this not because he remembered that he was a loyal American who once served this country. He is doing it because he wants to keep from going to jail and wants to spare his family. That is a lack of integrity.</s>LEMON: You hit the nail on the head there. It says as much in the indictment in this memo that he should have known better, but just real quickly, he was a conspiracy theorist before this.</s>HALL: You know, I think people who deal with Russia and people who are dealing in counter intelligence matters both of which he did, you sometimes you're drawn to the dark side, because there are a lot of conspiracies out there, but again, somebody who is a general in military intelligence should definitely know better and be able to make the distinction between what is a real threat, what is a real possibility and what is just malarkey. Again, the integrity issues is what strikes me.</s>LEMON: Steve.</s>CAMPBELL: I don't think we can lose sight of Don, just quickly, I mean, the fact, that if you look at his statements Michael Flynn, I mean, this is someone who is called for the extra judicial imprisonment of one of his political opponents. He is talking about Secretary Clinton. And I don't think it can be lost on any of us what Bob Mueller is saying is look, this is how the rule of law works in America. This is what prosecutorial discretion looks like. This is what fairness looks like. And it's just a striking comparison when you see a lot of conspiracies and what's been pedaled.</s>LEMON: He led the lock her up chant. A lot of folks out there are now saying lock him up. Thank you all. I appreciate it. President Trump came face-to-face with all the living former Presidents at the state funeral today for George H.W. Bush. And the moment was just about as awkward as you'd expect.