You're listening to Bloomberg Low with Michael Best in New York and Greg's story in Washington, d C. The House and Senate Intelligence Committee investigations into possible Russian tampering in the two thousands sixteen presidential election and also into possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian agents has taken
center stage. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who lost his job after the shortest tenure in American history as National Security Advisor because he failed to fully describe his conversations with the Russian ambassador last year, could be a witness in congressional probes, and now he has asked for immunity before he testifies before Congress, and President Trump has
tweeted that he agrees with Flynn's request. Here to talk with us about the immunity request by Michael Flynn or Stephen Vladdock, professor at the University of Texas School of Law, and Andrew Right, a professor at Savannah Law School. Andrew the House and Senate Intelligence Committee is important as they are not the prosecutors in this case. They're not the people who will decide whether or not there are going to be criminal charges against Mr. Flynn based on his
testimony or for any other reason. How does immunity work in a situation like this? Sure, thanks for having me on the show. So the House and Senate committees, under a statute that was passed in can choose to grant immunity through by means of a court order. Through if it's in front of a committee like these are, it would be a two thirds vote of the full committee,
and then they can seek a court order. That's basically a ministerial job for the court to grant that order to give what they call youth community or castorg our immunity that would allow him to testify even over the
assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self incrimination. That statutory scheme also recognized, however, that there's a connection to the Justice Department, So Congress has to give the Attorney General ten days notice, which both allows the Attorney General to um sequester or the information they've already gathered it out to that witness to make sure that they have a file that doesn't show that they actually use information
derived from the congressional testimony and gives the A G and Department an opportunity to object if they think that the congressional effort might complicate the prosecution or frustrated Steve, it sounds as though the congressional investigators aren't inclined to grant the immunity right now. But what goes into that calculation for lawmakers and their investigators, Why would they give
somebody like Michael Flynn immunity? Well, I guess, I mean the real question is whether they think that there are material pieces of evidence and information that someone like Michael Flynn has they can provide to the committee that he'd be disinclined to provide but for the immunity. So, you know, this is part of why oftentimes when these kinds of issues come up, the first time you hear about it
is not in a tweet from the witness's lawyer. Rather it's in, you know, after the committee has done some legwork, after there's been some kind of propersition, where the committee has a sense of exactly what kind of information they're going to get in exchange for the immunity. That's the calculus.
And I think, you know, it's interesting here that there's no suggestment that's happened, and that what's really going on is a public relations campaign where Flynn lawyer is saying, you know, he should get immunity, and no one on the hill seems to be really you know, publicly talking
about it. Yeah, it does seem a little odd Andrew that you know that a lawyer would go public with a request like this when you when you talk about doing something like a proffer, as Steve mentioned, what what kind of discussions would usually happen between say a congressional
committee and somebody's lawyer before a decision got made. Well, I think the committee would want to satisfy itself that he has something that's juicy enough or important enough to the committee's work that they would be worth sacrificing the potential exposure he'd have for any crimes that were committed. So they'd really want to know something about what do
you have a story to tell? And you know his attorney's statement, there's been a lot made of the fact that he said General Wind certainly has a story to tell, and I think and you know that's that was sort of pregnant with that idea that there might be something juicy there. However, I think, you know the fact that he went public with this is not the kind of the way you woo a committee into actually granting an
immunity um border. So I think, you know, there's some pretty good speculation here that they might not have that much to offer, They're not offering that much to the committee, and that this is kind of a public relations campaign, Steve, as we've been discussing, this is immunity just for what he might say to the committee, Not immunity from anything having to do with the uh the issue of contact
with Russia. But as a practical matter, if somebody like Mike Flynn were to get immunity, how difficult would it make Would that make it to prosecute him for any crime related to this investigation? Yeah, I mean it would make it pretty hard. You know, not formally because you know, depending on how the immunity is provided by the relevant congressional committees, there are ways to do it that wouldn't
necessary early applied to a criminal investigation. But you know, folks may remember that, you know, the Oliver North indictment after Iron Contra blew up largely because there were questions about the scope of the immunity he had had been provided before testifying before Congress. There were concerns about whether there were Fife Amendment implications for not you know, giving
him a similar treatment in a criminal prosecution. So, you know, I think part of the complexity here is not just the politics on Capitol Hill, but also the Andy was talking about. I mean, the dynamic you're going to necessarily
have between the congressional investigators and the Justice Department. Um, you know, at least some of whom might very well want a pretty substantial bite at this apple if it turns out that, you know, Michael Flynn can really be tied to some of the more serious criminal allegations that
are being bandied about Andrew. One of the things that has been different about this one, it seems, is that the President of the United States has tweeted that he supports Mr. Flynn's request for immunity because this is, to paraphrase, a witch hunt, uh, this investigation in his view. How unusual is it for a president to do something like that. Well,
first of all, it's totally unprecedented. And the second point is it's problematic because a President Trump shouldn't know what the FBI does or does not have in terms of information within its investigation on Mr. Flynn, So he wouldn't be in a position to know whether it's actually which one or not absent some sort of improper contact with
the Justice Department. So that's one problem. The second problem with that tweet is the fact that it creates the perception that he might be publicly trying to signal to Flynn to try and seek community or some in some other way interfere with the natural processes of the Justice Department and the FBI as they go forward with a
very serious counterintelligence to counter intelligence investigation. Steve, you only have about a minute left, but I wanted to ask you about Richard Painter and Norm Eisen had had a column in the New York Times where they said, we gotta go ahead and give Michael Flynn immunity because this is so important that we need to get to the bottom of what happened as quickly as possible. What do you think about that? You know, I think that's I think that's you know, good for headlines. I think it's
bad for policy. I mean, there are lots of reasons why, you know, even if it's not good press, we really want this investigation to go methodically and slowly and one step at a time. Um and before we have a better sense or at least before congressional investigators have a better sense of just what Michael Flynn knows and just what he did, you know to give him immunity a
sort of a knee jerk reaction. Um. I think it's going to be a very myopic move um, and could actually handstring the investigation down the road as opposed to opening the doors to you know, getting there faster, as as Eisman Painter Is suggested. Our thanks to Steve Laddock of the University of Texas School of Law and Andrew Wright, professor at Savannah Law School. That's it for this edition of Bloomberg Law. We'll be back tomorrow thanks to our
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