point is that it's a question that a lot of people close to the situation are asking themselves is why did mueller allow for this prosecutorial vulnerability? because that's what it is. he could have charged flynn on any number of things and he chose to make it this one thing lying to the fbi which really does give a very big free kick to the opposition that can say, well, he lied about this, he could lie -- how can you trust anything he has to say? so it actually is a bit of vulnerability for the prosecution. >> julia, in terms of the timing here, i think one of the questions this raises is are we looking at just sort of a basic potential legal strategy, a contingency scenario that the trump team is preparing for? or is there a more specific reason why they're now talking about this apparently? has something happened since that plea a few weeks ago in exchange they're thinking about flynn's role in all of this? >> well, i can't -- i can't speak to the change in their thinking, but i think it fits overall with trump's broader