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Speaker 1: we're watching this morning with Steve Podusk in the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Washington Newsroom. More regulation may not be the best answer
Speaker 1: to protecting the financial system against cyber attacks. Instead, Federal
Speaker 1: Reserve officials say am more flexible approach will be tried.
Speaker 1: The Agriculture Department is withdrawing proposed biotechnology regulations that were
Speaker 1: issued under the Obama administration after critical public comments from
Speaker 1: indistrict groups, and a person familiar with the matter says
Speaker 1: Senate tax writers plan to keep the mortgage interest deduction
Speaker 1: limit at one million dollars, unlike House legislation that sets
Speaker 1: a calp of five hundred thousand dollars for new home sales.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Law everything you need, all on one legal research platform,
Speaker 1: including guidance analysis and Bloomberg Market Intelligence. Find out more
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg law dot com. Now in other legal news,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at the latest developments in Special
Speaker 1: Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the election,
Speaker 1: which is now said to focus on former National Security
Speaker 1: Advisor Michael Flynn. For more on this story, Bloomberg Law
Speaker 1: host Michael Best spoke with Andrew Kent, a professor at
Speaker 1: Fordham University Law School. Andrew, what do we know about
Speaker 1: what the Special Council is looking at Michael Flynn and
Speaker 1: his son? For Oh, we haven't had anything that I've
Speaker 1: seen come directly from Mueller's office, but certainly based on
Speaker 1: what's been reported in the press over the last six months,
Speaker 1: I think we have a pretty good idea of what
Speaker 1: it might be. Um. I think probably the most likely
Speaker 1: thing would be a charge related to his acting as
Speaker 1: UM an agent of the Turkish Turkish government without registering
Speaker 1: with the Department of Justice, as he's required to by
Speaker 1: federal law. If it's come out now that he has
Speaker 1: enough evidence to bring charges against Flynn, it can't be that,
Speaker 1: you know, this just suddenly happened. UM. One would think
Speaker 1: he's known that for a while, so it would appears
Speaker 1: he's making decisions about what order to charge people in
Speaker 1: and for what. So we have these Manifort and Gates
Speaker 1: indictments and now we're finding out about Flynn. What what
Speaker 1: can you discern from all this about the way in
Speaker 1: which he's trying to play a strategy out in this investigation. Well,
Speaker 1: a number of people saw the distinction between the Manafort
Speaker 1: charges and then what happened with Papadopoulos as trying to
Speaker 1: send a message to people in Flynn's shoes. And so
Speaker 1: Manafort had seemingly failed to cooperate with Mueller and he
Speaker 1: really got slammed in terms of the number of charges filed,
Speaker 1: and Mueller is seeking a lot of forfeiture from from Manafort,
Speaker 1: Uh Engates as well. Papa Appas, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: came off with, you know, just one charge and you know,
Speaker 1: we don't know anything about sentence exposure, but probably could
Speaker 1: end up with very little, if any jail time. Perhaps,
Speaker 1: So a lot of people saw that as saying, you know,
Speaker 1: get on the right side of this, cooperate with with
Speaker 1: Mueller's probe, and we will treat you fairly. And certainly,
Speaker 1: Michael flann is somebody who's been extremely close to Trump
Speaker 1: going way back on the campaign and then obviously served
Speaker 1: as his National security advisor seems like somebody who has
Speaker 1: a large amount of information, and so he would probably
Speaker 1: be precisely the type of person that Muller would be
Speaker 1: sending those signals to. Um, you know, cooperate and and
Speaker 1: you know, get some lesser charges or if not, we're
Speaker 1: going to really throw the book at you. And that's
Speaker 1: Andrew Kent, a professor at Fordham University Law School, speaking
Speaker 1: with the Bloomberg's Michael Bass. You can listen to Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: for more information.