December 18, 2018

Once Again Shocking Legal Experts, Trump Wishes Flynn “Good Luck” Ahead of Sentencing

The president also appeared to pressure his former national security adviser to stay quiet.

Beowulf Sheehan/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump offered a message of “good luck” to Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, on Tuesday morning, just hours before Flynn was scheduled to be sentenced in federal court.

Trump also openly expressed curiosity over what more Flynn may have to tell investigators—a line many interpreted as yet another stunning effort by the president to potentially tamper with a witness in the special counsel’s ongoing probe.

Citing Flynn’s valuable cooperation with prosecutors, special counsel Robert Mueller has recommended that Flynn face no prison time for his crimes.

The tweet comes amid increasing legal jeopardy for the president after his former personal attorney Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in federal prison, having implicated Trump in a hush-money scheme. (In his latest attack against Cohen, Trump on Sunday angrily branded Cohen a “rat.” In direct contrast, Trump had previously praised his longtime political adviser Roger Stone for his public statements refusing to testify against the president.)

Trump’s “good luck” message has once again shocked legal experts, many of whom denounced the tweet Tuesday:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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