HOW DEEP WAS HIS TREASON?:

Tuesday's sentencing hearing for Michael Flynn, President Trump's former national security adviser, took an unexpected twist after his attempts to shift blame to the government backfired. After Flynn retracted his allegations of "entrapment" by FBI agents into lying and (re) confirmed his guilty plea, Judge Emmet Sullivan offered a startling rebuke of Flynn: "I want to be frank with you, this crime is very serious," said the judge, adding, "I am not hiding my disgust, my disdain for your criminal offense."

Lost in the circus around Flynn's sentencing -- which is delayed until March -- is the unsolved mystery of why Flynn sat across from two FBI agents to begin with and attempted to deceive them. Put simply, why did he lie?

As former special agents who used to conduct national security investigations, we have encountered deceptive subjects and know that their reasons for lying are worth exploring. Flynn's motivation for deceiving investigators remains one of the most significant unanswered questions in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's ongoing investigation. Given that Flynn has sat for 19 interviews since pleading guilty, Mueller certainly knows the answers. But for the rest of us, this piece of the puzzle can shed light on the magnitude of the threat Flynn posed to national security.

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