It's Mueller Time, Mike Flynn Edition

Last night's Mueller team court sentencing filing on Michael Flynn did not disappoint, as it turns out that the good General has been cooperating with the FBI since before the Mueller probe was even authorized.

Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser, helped substantially with the special counsel’s investigation and should receive little to no prison time for lying to federal investigators, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Mr. Flynn was a key cooperator who helped the Justice Department with several investigations, prosecutors for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said. He sat for 19 interviews with Mr. Mueller’s office and other prosecutors and handed over documents and communications, they said.

“His early cooperation was particularly valuable because he was one of the few people with long-term and firsthand insight” into the subject of Mr. Mueller’s investigation — Russia’s election interference and whether any Trump associates conspired, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing recommendation memorandum and an addendum that was heavily blacked out.

In particular, they wrote, he might have prompted others to cooperate with the inquiry. “The defendant’s decision to plead guilty and cooperate likely affected the decisions of related firsthand witnesses to be forthcoming,” prosecutors said.

They also indicated that Mr. Flynn helped with other investigations without revealing details about them.

Mr. Flynn, who served briefly as the president’s national security adviser, is the only White House aide and the first person from the president’s inner circle to strike a cooperation deal with the special counsel’s office in exchange for a more lenient penalty. He pleaded guilty a year ago to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time, Sergey I. Kislyak.

“The defendant deserves credit for accepting responsibility in a timely fashion and substantially assisting the government,” prosecutors wrote.

The cases of some other former Trump aides caught up in the special counsel investigation are also nearing resolution, marking an active week for Mr. Mueller’s inquiry. By Friday, Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors are due to enumerate how they believe Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, violated a plea agreement and separately to outline the extent of cooperation by Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer.

Another longtime Trump associate whom Mr. Mueller is scrutinizing, Roger J. Stone Jr., said on Tuesday that he had invoked his the Fifth Amendment rights in response to a request from Democratic investigators for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hand over documents and testimony relevant to their own Russia inquiry. Mr. Stone’s lawyer, Grant J. Smith, said the committee’s request was “overbroad” and stressed that Mr. Stone was “an innocent citizen who denounces secrecy.”

Basically everything we've suspected about Mike Flynn is true.  All the stuff about him getting rounded up by the FBI nearly immediately after Trump took office, getting caught lying red-handed, and then turning states' evidence, is 100% accurate.

And Flynn's plea deal made it clear to everyone else that Mueller's investigation was for real, and that people should start cutting deals ASAP.  There are only two people that Flynn, Manafort, and Cohen could give up more important than themselves, and that's Mike Pence and Donald Trump.

The two of them should be crapping cinder blocks right now.  We know what role Flynn played, according to the sentencing filing, there are at least three investigations, one involving Flynn's lies, one involving the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia, and a third, completely redacted investigation.  It's that last one that should have Trump and Pence paralyzed with fear.

We'll know what roles Manafort and Cohen played before the end of the week, too.  More is coming, folks.  A lot more.

And then the indictments will come like the cleansing rain of justice.