policy. you know, it s interesting, rebecca, that he pleaded guilty almost a year ago, michael flynn. he s met 19 times since then with mueller and his prosecutors, and they have pushed back flynn s sentencing now four times because he was cooperating, presumably providing important information. what does that indicate about the extent, the quality of his cooperation? well, it means that this relationship, wolf, was extremely fruitful. as laura said, you don t grant an extension on sentencing. you don t grant such lenience in sentencing to a witness like flynn if there isn t a good reason to do so. if he s not providing really valuable information to mueller and his investigators. and so that is exactly what he was doing throughout these 19 interviews, giving them information that they couldn t get elsewhere, giving them information that was moving their investigation forward. he was a good witness. he was a cooperating witness, unlike, say, paul manafort as we re now seeing. he li
committee. is that witness tampering? you re getting into a very extensive area when you re encouraging people not to cooperate. frankly, as a principle, it should be cooperation with legal authorities. we all have constitutional rights to not speak, to invoke the fifth amendment. but no one, i think, should be actively telling people not to cooperate with legitimate investigators. big picture. where does donald trump fit into these investigations? that is very difficult to determine. because the investigations are going forward. there s been suggestions, again, with comey, the director of the fbi, the president s request pointing to director comey he not pursue general flynn. is that part of the investigation? it s difficult to determine exactly where the president is. mueller says he says that senior in the memorandum, says senior government leaders
not completely surprised. he was really traveling with president trump. and in the beginning, there were very few people, particularly foreign policy people, on the trump staff in the presidential campaign. and so general flynn, i think, was critically at very key moments. but were you surprised at how deeply he was cooperating and for how long he was cooperating? presumably a long time. i was not surprised. and one reason i wasn t surprised is that i think he recognized quite quickly that he had violated a not only the law, but a standard of conduct that he observed rigorously as a military officer, which is truthfulness in all of your dealings. and i think his recognition of that prompted him to make a decision, a personal choice, that he would be completely forthcoming and cooperative with director mueller. people forget he is a retired three-star general, head of the defense intelligence agency. had 30-plus years in the u.s. military.
evan perez reporting for us. evan, thank you very much. joining us right now, democratic senator, jack reed of rhode island, has a seat on the intelligence committee, as well as being ranking member of the armed services committee. senator, thank you so much for coming in. thank you, wolf. so he worked longer, presumably, you just heard evan say, for robert mueller than he actually worked for donald trump. how significant is that? i think it s very significant. because one of the key elements in the presentation that director mueller made was flynn has first-person knowledge of many activities. this is not hearsay. this is not someone told me. this is i was there, i heard someone say this. i think also, which is critical, is the fact that other people having knowledge of flynn s testimony have cooperated also. so he s been a very critical element in this investigation. were you surprised when you heard the details that were included in this document last night?
aircraft carrying the bush family and the casket of the former president, george h.w. bush as it flew over the bush presidential library in texas. that s in college station, texas, texas a&m university. the plane will be landing in houston fairly soon. the president s coffin will lie in repose later tonight. we ll have coverage of that arrival ceremony. stand by for that. also we re learning critical new information right now about robert mueller s russia investigation. his sentencing memo in the case of the former national security adviser, michael flynn, is revealing key details, but also raising new questions about the special counsel s probe. let s dig deeper with our correspondents and our analysts. and laura coates, michael flynn s in this memorandum citing michael flynn s substantial assistance and early cooperation. the special counsel robert mueller says he s recommending no jail time at all for the national former national security adviser, even though he