Only when Robert Mueller and his very aggressive team of prosecutors took over the case was Flynn charged with lying. Flynn’s apologists argue that he was railroaded. Yet he pled guilty, voluntarily admitting he had lied. When his defenders insisted that he had done this under pressure — broken financially by legal fees, distraught that prosecutors might turn their sights on his son — the judge in his case offered him the opportunity to withdraw his guilty plea and argue that his rights had been violated. Flynn declined, reaffirming that he had misled his interrogators.

For that, Flynn has no one to blame but himself. He should never, however, have been put in that position. What the FBI and the Justice Department did to Flynn, what the Obama administration did to Flynn, was not illegal. But like most everything else in Russiagate, it was not right.