Holy crap, Rachel Maddow just hit me over the head.

[RandySF]

It makes sense now that Judge Sullivan went off the way he did. He's seen facts we haven't. Holy shit what did he see?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Well, yeah; obviously. Redacted documents are redacted only for the public.

Judges always see them. It would appear that he concluded from the redacted material that there are songs Flynn hasn't sung yet, and the judge was so concerned about the seriousness of Flynn's crimes that he postponed sentencing so Flynn could finish his aria and maybe save himself from incarceration.

[AlexSFCA]

2. I wish they would just make these docs public

without any redactions.

[LiberalFighter]

4. They may later when the case is over.

[RandySF]

5. Not unless we want to tip off other targets.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. Not if there are ongoing investigations. No way.

There are good reasons for these redactions, and we'll just have to wait to find out what they are.

[Leghorn21]

3. Yes, an earlier show had a reporter on who pointed out that Judge Sullivan knows EVERYTHING

and I went ohhhhhh, he has seen what’s behind those black lines, ohhhhh

Must be a real eyeful

Dayam

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

7. Of course he did. Judges always get the unredacted documents.

[RandySF]

9. And I am trying to imagine the scope of what he saw.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. It must be pretty juicy.

I'm sure we'll find out eventually, just like with Watergate. It took awhile but we finally got to learn the whole dirty story. I just started re-reading The Final Days, the Woodward/Bernstein book about the end of the Nixon administration (I read it when it came out many years ago but forgot a lot of the details), and it really was déja-vù all over again. History doesn't exactly repeat itself but there are a lot of echoes.

[Leghorn21]

12. Every day on DU I live and I learn!!

Thanks, Ocelot!

[Jarqui]

8. He saw why Michael Cohen wanted to get his sentencing over with now

(as I've posted before)

If this gets as ugly as it appears with 17 investigations and other countries paying Americans to turn against their country, folks are going to be looking for longer sentences for the traitors. The Turkey charade alone is pretty ugly.

Flynn can cooperate for months and I still think he's going to see some jail time.

The uglier it gets, the longer the sentences. If they didn't have anything, this investigation would be shut down. Instead, it has mushroomed into 17 investigations that we know of and there are probably some we don't know of.

By the end of it, I think perjury, paying a couple of women off for a campaign or stealing some charity money are going to look like petty crimes.

[peggysue2]

11. Think Rachel's statement is a reminder that . . .

we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on any of these investigations. Judge Sullivan in this case was privy to all the redacted material and was . . . appalled. His statements clearly indicate his level of total disgust.

The irony is that the Trumpski crowd was sure that Judge Sullivan would take their viewpoint: that Flynn was unfairly targeted by the FBI, tricked into providing information when they knew he was . . . innocent, and then deliberately smeared.

Judge Sullivan put that neatly to rest as well as the crazed conspiracy theories coming from Trumplandia, Fox News and right-wing radio. Because the propagandists are making it up as they go along and the True Believers are swallowing the swill and calling it . . . truth. Which they wouldn't recognize if they fell over it.

I'm really glad Judge Sullivan made his comments. He defended the Rule of Law and that's a very good thing, the best defense against Trumpski and his odious enablers.

[wiggs]

13. Maybe something similar to what the Gang of 8 was briefed on a year ago? When they came

out of the briefing ashen-faced and somber? Feinstein said something about impeachment...

...they know too.

[spooky3]

14. Her guest (the Republican attorney who never smiles - sorry I don't know his name)

made some surprising comments about how "intemperate" Judge Sullivan's remarks were. (Hmm--wish I could remember if he said anything similar about the judge in the Manafort trial, whose comments were far more inappropriate, IMH non-lawyer O).

It's interesting to think that he knows some pretty awful facts that we don't and that could have accounted for his comments today. I also thought he was trying to quietly express outrage at Sarah Sanders' and Trump's blaming the FBI for various bad acts that they did not do. If so, I think he was entirely justified.

It seems really strange to me that the Mueller team did not answer him with something like, "Gen. Flynn has provided all of the information that we believe he has."

[spooky3]

16. and Greg Miller, on 11th Hour just said he thought the judge was reacting to Flynn's family's social

media posts, in which they seem to view him as a martyr, unfairly targeted for political reasons, etc. I didn't know about these but it's just more reason to cheer the judge for setting the record straight today about who is responsible for Flynn's bad behavior, and asking Mueller to take another look.

[triron]

17. Yeah I do think he seemed too smug.

[canetoad]

18. Chuck Rosenberg

I've got it on right now.

Maybe the Mueller team don't believe that Flynn has spilled everything.

[spooky3]

19. thank you. nt

[triron]

15. Of course.

[George II]

20. I was saying that earlier today - the judge saw the unredacted version of the documents....

....and now we know Flynn did a lot worse than we can even imagine.

[triron]

21. kick for visibility