Here is what I have written about Flynn, in brief: Flynn was a Trump loyalist, who would keep his damned mouth shut, based on the expectation of a pardon. His lawyers would drag out any trial as long as possible, and then Trump would pardon him. He might have to serve a little bit of time, Scooter Libby-style, but nothing serious. Then, big bucks on the conservative lecture circuit, where he would be covered by "wingnut welfare."
Yeah, that didn't work out. All of this was predicated on Flynn keeping his cool. Here's where I miscalculated. Flynn... not so much on the whole, "keeping his cool," thing. And I really should have built that into my assessments. Mueller leaned on him haaaard. And he broke. Because Flynn is... not cool. He's nuts. He got scared that Trump wouldn't come through with the pardon, cut a deal, turned on somebody (probably Kushner, at least), and now...
...
Trump hates disloyalty. Once you turn on him, things change. Trump's rhetoric on Flynn is interesting now. Current discussion is about that statement that he knew Flynn had lied to the FBI, but what is interesting is that Trump hasn't yet turned on Flynn to the same degree that he has turned on others whom he sees as disloyal. Then again, that may just be a matter of time. If Mueller arrests Kushner based on Flynn's testimony, Flynn's pardon, which I had expected, has roughly a 0% chance of happening.
So, how do I assess this? Game theory, of course. One might be tempted to think of this in terms of the prisoner's dilemma, but that would be wrong.
The basic prisoner's dilemma is as follows. The cops arrest two suspects for the same crime, and interrogate them separately. If neither turn on the other, they each get a minor sentence (say, one year). If they turn on each other, they each get five years. If one turns on the other, and one stays silent, the rat gets away scot-free and the patsy gets ten years.
In a one-shot, simultaneous-move game, the solution is for each player to turn on the other because no matter what I think you are doing, my best move is to rat you out. If I think you are staying silent, I have a choice between one year, and walking. If I think you are ratting me out, I have a choice between five years and ten years. I rat you out either way. So, each player turns rat, even though they would both do better by both staying silent. There. Intro game theory.
This isn't the prisoner's dilemma. First, there's sequence here. The sequence is just... indeterminate. Trump could pardon Flynn at any point, but Flynn could, if left hanging, rat Trump out at any point. Flynn could have kept his mouth shut, conspicuously, to be followed by a pardon. Or, he could notice that keeping his mouth shut isn't getting him that pardon, and turn rat. Sequence matters. And Trump has nothing to gain by leaving Flynn hanging, unlike in the prisoner's dilemma. It's just a question of precisely how pointlessly dishonorable Trump is.
That brings in the reputation factor, which isn't structurally part of the game. In order to keep Flynn quiet, Trump has to say, "trust me." And there's the problem. In repeated prisoner's dilemmas, players can cooperate based on the threat of future punishment. If Player 1 defects, player 2 can punish him. If player 1 has cooperated in the past, player 2 has reason to believe that player 1 will continue to cooperate.
So, Flynn and Trump. Trump pardoned Arpaio.
Wasn't that supposed to be a signal that he'd shut down everything and pardon his people? I kind of called bullshit on that. If the Arpaio pardon had been a signal, Flynn would have kept his fuckin' mouth shut.
Instead, Flynn just got nervous, decided that Trump is too intrinsically untrustworthy, didn't want to play some waiting game hoping for a pardon, and blabbed.
Now, he may serve a little time. Maybe. Then again, he gave up Kushner, and who knows what else?
Still, I was wrong about Flynn. His personal loyalty to Trump was nonexistent, he didn't have the spine to wait for a pardon or serve his time like a pro, so he turned Henry Hill.
Will this lead to an impeachment? Nope. I still put the probability of that at some absurdly low number. I am not updating that probability at all.
There is absolutely nothing that will convince a GOP House to impeach a Republican President, and conviction in the Senate requires 2/3. Ain't gonna happen. Trump is going around telling people that the "pussy" tape is fake, and that Obama's birth certificate is fake. Still. He's still saying that. He will lie, lie, lie, no matter what Mueller gets, and no matter how many of his own people turn on him. The conservative media will back Trump no matter what, and the kind of people who are now defending Roy Moore (like Donny-boy himself) will never, under any circumstances, believe that Trump did anything wrong because we live in a fact-free world now.
Then again, what if Mueller arrests Jared Kushner, and then Kushner turns on Donny-boy? At some point, he might actually want Ivanka for himself... I feel like I should be writing this in either Greek or iambic pentameter. I don't know Greek and my poetry sucks. Sorry.
There once was a douchebag from Queens
His friends went and spilled all the beans...