Uh...THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT COLLUSION LOOKS LIKE. Flynn is telling Kislyak -- in secret -- not to take the predictable retaliatory step because then they will be "boxed in" and unable to *publicly* do what they *privately* want to. 1/ https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1266473641459531782

I'll add -- as I have said before -- that this was NOT "in the interests of the United States." Why? Because at most, Putin might have, at the time, done a "tit-for-tat" (30 expulsions), or maybe escalated it, as Flynn believes (60 expulsions)...but what ended up happening? 2/

After giving these reassurances, and encouraging Putin to lose face diplomatically (by not doing anything), Trump wasn't able to stop *further* sanctions the following summer. What did Putin do? He expelled *775* diplomats. That was a big finger back to the Flynn "promise" 3/

If you'll recall, Trump (who had tried to slow-roll the sanctions in the first place) then took his licking from Pooty, as usual -- claiming that the expulsions were a good thing for the U.S. because they were costing the U.S. too much money. ?! 4/

I laid it out here and anyone who says that Flynn should not have been asked questions about this call has no idea how expulsions and work and what they mean when we use it as a diplomatic punishment https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/363060-missing-big-picture-in-flynn-plea-trump-team-crippled-american-diplomatic

P.S. Not for nothing but it looks to me like Flynn couldn't care less that Russia attacked us and appears to believe that it was unreasonable to be punishing them at all. Huh.