Michael Flynn’s agreement to cooperate with investigators only adds to the worries after a former campaign aide’s secret deal was kept quiet for months.
Paranoia is enveloping the White House and President Donald Trump’s network of former aides and associates as Robert Mueller’s Russia probe heats up.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn agreed to cooperate with investigators as part of the plea deal he reached last week, adding to the worry already inside Trump’s circle surrounding the secret deal struck earlier this summer by former campaign aide George Papadopoulos, whose cooperation was kept quiet for months before being unsealed in late October.
Both cases raise the possibility that other current or former colleagues have also flipped sides — and they’re prompting anxiety that those people could be wearing wires to secretly tape record conversations.
“Everyone is paranoid,” said a person close to Trump’s White House. “Everyone thinks they’re being recorded.”
Mueller is doing little to abate those suspicions. Tucked inside last week’s 10-page plea deal Flynn struck with government prosecutors is an agreement that the former White House national security adviser could avoid a potential lengthy jail term in part by “participating in covert law enforcement activities.”
Wiring up cooperating witnesses is a routine law enforcement tactic used hundreds — if not thousands — of times a year in criminal cases and on occasion for more complex white-collar investigations. It’s done to obtain a record of other conspirators and witnesses talking about their conduct, which can be used as confirmation when pressing for indictments and as first-hand evidence to be introduced during trial. Mueller, a former FBI director, and the team of veteran Justice Department prosecutors he’s surrounded himself with are schooled in the benefits of the wiring technique.
“I think they’d be derelict of duty if they didn’t use it,” said Solomon Wisenberg, a former deputy on Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton.
White House attorneys and private counsel representing both current and former Trump aides told POLITICO they immediately checked in with their clients once they learned about Mueller’s plea agreements with Papadopoulos and Flynn, asking whether they’d had any communications with their former colleagues which could have been secretly recorded while also reminding them to be diligent in avoiding conversations with anyone except their lawyer related to the Russia investigation.
“They’re probably shitting bricks,” said an attorney who represents a senior Trump aide caught up in the Russia investigation. “How can you not?”
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“Everyone is paranoid,” said a person close to Trump’s White House. “Everyone thinks they’re being recorded.” https://t.co/lzZIohuZel pic.twitter.com/LA3iGFV1y2
— POLITICO (@politico) December 4, 2017
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