There remains, of course, the issue of Flynn’s violation of foreign lobbying laws, which he admitted to but for which he was not charged. In August 2016, Flynn’s consulting firm entered a contract with a Dutch firm owned by a Turkish businessman on a project “for the principal benefit of the Republic of Turkey.” That contract expired in November 2016.

Flynn’s firm did register initially its contract through the Lobbying Disclosure Act, or LDA. Many lobbyists use the LDA as a way of avoiding the more onerous reporting requirements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

More to the point, the FBI until 2017 barely enforced FARA violations. A 2016 Justice Department Inspector General report found only seven times when the U.S. brought criminal charges against FARA violators between 1965 and 2015. Most violators were either fined and/or asked to file retroactively as a foreign agent, which Flynn did in March 2017.