Former FBI agent Clint Watts said the president would likely drive himself crazy trying to determine what Mike Flynn would tell investigators after pleading guilty in the Russia probe.
The disgraced former national security adviser admitted to making false statements to FBI agents about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition, and he agreed to cooperate in the special counsel investigation of Trump campaign ties to Russia.
"Flynn has cut off communications, we're hearing in some press reports, with the Trump team, (and) I'm sure he'll stay silent with the trump team after that," Watts told MSNBC. "This will drive the president and his inner White House crazy. He can't figure out what's being said behind those closed doors and in those conversations."
Watts said the scope of Flynn's cooperation will become known over the coming days and weeks, when special counsel Robert Mueller issues subpoenas and schedules more interviews.
"Whatever cooperation that the Flynn team is putting together with the Mueller team will eventually come out, and so the first interviews that we see, the first subpoenas we see after this, we'll tell you what that cooperation was probably about and what direction they're going after this," Watts said.
Flynn reportedly is prepared to tell Mueller that Trump himself directed him to contact Russian government agents -- and Watts can't believe the retired U.S. Army general wouldn't have known those conversations could be recorded.
"That's what doesn't make sense about this entire case," Watts said. "Let's think about this. Here's the former head of the (Defense Intelligence Agency). He calls the ambassador of a foreign country and then lies to the FBI. How does this even come to be questioned? There had to be some sort of an intercept, there had to have been a way the FBI knew he wasn't telling the truth. This is going to be very damning."