Trump should be 'very worried' about Flynn cooperating with Mueller, Preet Bharara says

Preet Bharara talks Trump and Michael Flynn flipping

(Image credit: Screenshot/Twitter/CNN)

On Thanksgiving, lawyers representing President Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pulled out of an agreement to share information with Trump's lawyers about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and the Trump campaign. Trump's lawyers reportedly believe the move could mean that Flynn is cooperating with Mueller's team, and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whom Trump fired as the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, said Sunday that Trump's team has good reason to be concerned.

"My view," Bharara told CNN, "based on how things used to operate in my office and based on how the world works, is that there's a substantial likelihood that they're at least in discussions with regard to cooperating." He added that Trump shouldn't necessarily be worried about Flynn flipping. "It depends on what the president has done and what the president's conversations with Michael Flynn and others have been," Bharara said. "But if you've done bad things, then you should be very worried."

Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow cautioned that "no one should draw the conclusion that this means anything about Gen. Flynn cooperating against the president," and in fact lawyers can scrap such informal information-sharing agreements for several reasons. Bharara agreed on Sunday that Flynn turning on Trump is "speculation," albeit "based on how the process has tended to work in the past." But if news reports are true that Flynn has "considerable legal liability, criminal liability," he added, then the only way to get him and potentially his son "off the hook" is "to cooperate with the prosecution." You can watch his entire interview at CNN.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.