Donald Trump is telling friends and aides in private that things are going great—for him. Some reasons: He’s decided that a key witness in the Russia probe, Paul Manafort, isn’t going to “flip” and sell him out, friends and aides say. He believes Robert Mueller, who heads the investigation, can be crushed, if necessary, without being fired. (this quote from the following article in 2018:
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2018-state-of-the-union-address/state-donald-trump-he-thinks-it-couldn-t-be-better-n842501)
And there it is.
There’s the then-President of the United States, Donald Trump, telling—in “private”— the people closest to him in the world (his personal “friends” and his political “aides”) something that he would never say in public to the media or even in private to donors: that Manafort had the ability to “‘flip’ [on him] and sell him out [by cooperating with the Mueller investigation].” I will say, as a former criminal investigator and former criminal defense attorney who worked in state and federal jurisdictions for nearly ten years (and who worked with defendants, during that time, who considered flipping or did flip on co-defendants), this is something a defendant only says when and if they know another person caught up in the criminal justice system has the goods on them.
{Note: I would add, further, that the terminology used here by Howard Fineman of NBC News is unmistakable.
Trump doesn’t say he is afraid a federal defendant will lie about him, he says he is afraid he will be “sold out” by that defendant. This phrase has a specific meaning that is impossible to duplicate.}