re: No prison time for flynn on Tucker right now

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Mmm, that’s not how federal prosecutions work.

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As a prosecutor, you build a case by having your cooperating accomplice witnesses plead guilty to the big scheme you are trying to pin on the main culprit. After all, what makes these witnesses accomplices, literally, is that they were participants in the main culprit’s crime. That’s the scheme you’re trying to prove. So, on guilty-plea day, the cooperator comes into court and admits guilt to the same conspiracy on which you are trying to nail the lead defendant.

That gets you 90 percent of the way home. “Yes, I am guilty of the conspiracy charged in Count One. I was a member of the drug cartel. A was the boss. B and C were the distributors. D organized the couriers and kept an arsenal to protect the drugs and the money, and to make sure we got paid. My job was to keep the books and supervise the money-laundering operation.”

This kind of guilty plea signals to the world, including to all the other suspects, that the accomplice is ready to testify that the criminal scheme existed — it is not a figment of the prosecutor’s fevered imagination. The accomplice is ready to describe what he did and what everybody else did. Virtually every appellate opinion reviewing conspiracy convictions notes the principle that once a conspiracy is shown to exist, only slight evidence is needed to tie a conspirator to it.

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You can always tell when Trump is having a great week because that's when Mueller comes up with something that ends up be nothing.

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Amazing being team Mueller and not feeling completely embarrassed after this

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WillieNelsonsDoobie

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