I STILL say: "Lock him up!"

Okay, I admit it: I offered a characteristically pessimistic prophecy, and I was wrong. Yesterday morning, I believed that Flynn has been pissing up Mueller's leg this whole time. Yesterday morning, I believed that Mueller would say "Throw the book at him." Yesterday morning, I believed that Flynn would then receive a pardon which would signal the Trumpocalypse.

But I was wrong. Michael Flynn has cooperated with Mueller, who has rewarded him with a recommendation of zero prison time.

(Why did Mueller choose this moment to reveal that document, I wonder? A poser for another time, perhaps.)

Nevertheless, cynicism remains the wisest course. Forecast the worst and all your surprises will be happy ones. In this case, I'm both happy and troubled. Despite the promising news, something doesn't feel right. Something is wrong.

For months, we have had plenty of reasons to suspect that Flynn had not really flipped. Here are seven of those reasons:

1. Neither "President" Trump nor Trump-friendly media attacked the man (aside from that one early anti-Flynn outburst at the National Enquirer).

2. Sean Hannity -- Trump's tongue -- called for Flynn to be pardoned.

3. There were news stories indicating that Flynn was playing the role of Johnny Tightlips.

4. The Russians had control of Flynn. When he was head of the DIA, they caught him in a classic honeytrap. I don't know if his relationship with that woman was sexual, and I don't really care. The important point is that Flynn was entangled -- intellectually, emotionally, personally -- with someone who, in the opinion of many, has deep links to Russian intelligence.

5. Flynn was a consultant on a project to build nuclear reactors in Russia. In other words, Flynn went into his arrangement with Mueller knowing that the Russian money spigot would one day flow again, if he protected Trump.

(That's right: Nuclear reactors. Yet the right still peddles their big lie about Hillary and those two American uranium mines owned by Rosatom -- mines which sold no uranium to Russia, and which do not produce weapons-grade uranium. By the way, Trump still has done nothing about Russian ownership of those mines, even though he has the power to force divestment.)

6. Flynn faced a single count of lying to the FBI. Maximum sentence: A measly six months. Afterward, Flynn could go back to working for Putin.

7. Here's the most important tell: Michael Flynn Jr.'s Twitter feed has continued to be a toxic waste dump for all things MAGA -- far-right conspiracy theories and Alt Right talking points. It's fair to presume that the son and the father are in constant communication.

I've kept an eye on that feed for months. My reasoning: If Flynn ever did turn -- if he revealed anything to endanger the Trump presidency -- then the feed would reflect that fact. If Papa told Junior that Trump was going down, Junior would stop doing the MAGA dance and admit that the jig is up.

Was that an illogical presumption? No, it was not.

Thus, when news of Mueller's paperwork reached my ears, my first thought was: Check the feed. As it turns out, what Junior had to say was verrrrrry EENteresting. (I doubt that many of you are old enough to recall Arte Johnson, but someone has to keep these ancient pop cultural memes alive.)

Here is what Junior tweeted at 6:06 PM on December 4. The sentencing memo was not yet released to the public at that time, but it seems clear that Junior knew of the contents.

God is good.

To those who have supported us throughout this process.... Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will never forget you.

He opens with the traditional Islamic salutation? How droll!

Some of the responses came from lefties doing a premature victory dance. Example:

First: if there was no crime to give #Mueller info on, why did your daddy meet 19 times with Special Prosecutors? Second: you should be damn thankful your dad saved your sorry ass

There were also responses from QAnon types who believe that Donnie DummKopf is capable of 11-dimensional chess...

WHY did Mueller have a 30 minute meeting WITH Trump the day before the investigation started? He wasn’t eligible for FBI Dierector. Hmmmm. Trump said, “you’re facing charges for U1, and you better look at both sides.” Trump has trolled once again, magically! Pain is incoming!

And so on.

What troubles me is a Junior tweet from the day before, December 3. At that time, everyone knew that this sentencing memo was about to drop, although we did not know what it would say. Junior offered these ominous words:

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

The implication is that Flynn Senior has been pulling a fast one all this time. The implication is that Flynn has been playing a deceptive game with Mueller, pretending to cooperate while withholding the real shit. The implication is that Flynn has been coordinating with Team Trump -- which would explain why MAGA media has been so pro-Flynn.

Naturally, the right responded to this tweet with its own tribal war dance. You know the drill: Triumphalist shouts of "WWG1WGA" and all that rot.

However, I did admire this response:

Rule of thumb for most of us w/ real jobs; if you see the art of war on the shelf, walk out.

Dunno about you, but I got sick of this Sun Tzu shit back in the '80s.

On the same date, Junior retweeted Jack Posobiec, Princeling of Conspiracyland:

Daily reminder that General Flynn was illegally unmasked and no one went to jail for it

In other words, the real crime was the exposure of Flynn's crime. Here we see a classic example of the IOIYAF philosophy. (It's Okay If You're A Fascist.)

All in all, I remain unnerved, unsatisfied and very un-optimistic. Yes, I know that Michael Flynn supposedly helped the Mueller probe. We are also told that Flynn aided a separate criminal case, about which we know almost nothing. (Marcy tries her best to parse what little info we have, but even she can't do much when facing a sea of black rectangles.) There also seems to be a third case, although the experts seem unsure as to whether this third case even exists, thanks to the heavy censorship of the document.

Side note: Why bother with the redactions? Whitaker can see this document, and he will blab all to Team Trump. Why hide the info from the American people when the target of the probe can see everything?

(How I long for the old days of monospace fonts, which allowed one to count the spaces and guess at the blacked-out names. Old-school anti-spook activists had a lot of fun playing that game.)

My bottom line: Flynn should not walk. In fact, he should be investigated ruthlessly, and perhaps charged with truly serious crimes. Like espionage. Treason.

I'll say it again: Flynn was the head of the DIA and he was compromised in a classic Russian honeytrap.

That is the real reason why Obama fired him. Obama should have brought charges against him. No, I can't prove cause and effect, but the chronology is damned troubling: After Flynn was compromised, Putin went on a bloody rampage to eradicate moles in his own system -- and Putin has also gone hunting for defectors outside of Russia.

Where did Putin get that information? Does America have any defense secrets left?

No outsider knows what Flynn has said to Mueller, but I strongly doubt that Flynn told him everything. Dunno about you, but that Sun-Tzu quote bugs the shit out of me. It tells me that Michael Flynn has been playing a very deceptive game all along.