Hours after Trump announces Putin meeting, report says Mueller ready to charge Flynn and son

In an exclusive report Sunday morning, NBC News noted that Mueller now has the evidence necessary to charge Donald Trump’s disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn as part of the Russia probe. According to NBC’s sources, Mueller may also bring charges against Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn.

Mueller is “applying renewed pressure” on the elder Flynn in the wake of the indictments brought against Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort, and Manafort’s associate Rick Gates, also a campaign official.

This bombshell news comes right on the heels of Trump’s announcement that he would be meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a summit on his trip to Asia.

That Flynn would be the next name on Mueller’s list is not surprising. As former U.S. attorney Kendall Coffey told MSNBC on Saturday, Flynn is “clearly, frankly, bluntly indictable” in the Russia investigation.

What’s more, he could shed some important light on precisely what Trump’s motives were for exerting inappropriate pressure on former FBI Director James Comey to drop his own investigation into Flynn’s activities with regard to Russia.

As Comey himself told the Senate Intelligence Committee, Trump’s remarks that he hoped Comey could “see [his] way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go” were “a direction to get rid of this investigation.”

Flynn lied about his communications with Russian agents, something the White House was well aware of — including Mike Pence — and yet they protected him anyway.

Mueller’s inquiry regarding the elder Flynn appears to be following similar lines as that of Manafort, according to NBC News:

The investigators are speaking to multiple witnesses in coming days to gain more information surrounding Flynn’s lobbying work, including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his overseas contacts, according to three sources familiar with the investigation.

Mueller’s team is also examining whether Flynn attempted to orchestrate the removal of a chief rival of Turkish President Recep Erdogan from the U.S. to Turkey in exchange for millions of dollars, two officials said.

Mueller may also indict Flynn’s son, “who worked closely with his father, accompanied him during the campaign and briefly worked on the presidential transition.”

Trump and numerous Republicans have made Mueller the target of nasty smear campaigns, and have been making attempts to shut down Mueller’s investigation altogether — something the spineless Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell flat-out refuses to take seriously or do anything about.

Clearly, Mueller is not intimidated by these attacks on his credibility or his work, and is continuing to do his job to get answers for the American people.

With Flynn potentially up next in the hot seat, those answers may not be far off.