Editorials of The Times

It is almost a truism in criminal investigations that those who flip early and help prosecutors build their case against higher-ranking figures are shown greater leniency than those who try to gut it out.

Michael Flynn, who served briefly as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, is Exhibit A in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

If other players, such as Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos, have worked only grudgingly with the special counsel, and some, like Roger Stone, are still holding out, we now know, thanks to a sentencing recommendation that Mueller’s office filed late Tuesday in federal court, that Flynn provided “substantial assistance” to federal investigators working to unravel the Russia mystery.

Flynn pleaded guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI last December and has been cooperating with investigators ever since. Perhaps he is motivated by a hope for leniency, perhaps by fidelity to the institutions he spent much of his lifetime serving. One day we may know.

Flynn’s assistance must give pause to the president, who has complained that “flipping” to testify against others should be illegal and has denigrated the work of law enforcement agencies. Just this week Trump praised Stone for having the “guts” not to cooperate with the Mueller investigation. The president has said little about Flynn since he left his employ.

The words “substantial assistance” are a legal term of art and carry significant weight in sentencing decisions. Flynn, who resigned as national security adviser in February 2017 after serving only 24 days in the job, sat for 19 interviews with Mueller’s prosecutors, assisting in several investigations, including the special counsel’s inquiry. (The details of those investigations are not provided in the sentencing memorandum.) For Flynn, this means that it is now “appropriate and warranted,” in the special counsel’s view, that he receive a light sentence — perhaps no jail time at all.

Since Mueller began obtaining indictments and convictions for a constellation of figures associated with Trump’s presidential campaign — as well as Russian actors trying to influence it — this is the first time the special counsel’s office has offered glowing praise for one of its targets and credited the value of cooperating early and often.

Flynn should take comfort in that, but that’s not to say his misdeeds were minor. As lawyers for Mueller’s office noted in their sentencing submission, Flynn’s crime was “serious.” On several occasions during a fateful interview at the White House just days into the new administration, the former national security adviser lied to FBI agents about his contacts during the transition with the former Russian ambassador. Flynn and the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, discussed ways to undercut Obama administration policy in the Middle East and toward Russia. We do not yet know whether Flynn, a former Army lieutenant general and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, did this on his own initiative or on orders from Trump or someone close to him.

After that fiasco, Flynn found himself in further legal jeopardy when he hid from the Justice Department the true extent of his lobbying work for Turkey, for which he acted as a foreign agent during the campaign and in support of which he wrote an op-ed published on Election Day 2016. That Mueller didn’t charge Flynn for this violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act was part of the sentencing deal — and a reason Flynn may have felt compelled to tell the special counsel everything he knows.

And what he knows, apparently, is quite a lot, as Mueller’s filing to the judge who will be sentencing Flynn indicates, with heavy redactions detailing nonpublic aspects of the Russia investigation plus a continuing criminal probe that seems unrelated to the larger inquiry. We won’t know until we know, but it is undeniable that Flynn was useful to the special counsel.

And lest we forget: Flynn himself is the reason there is a special counsel. Had it not been for Trump’s desire to interfere with the FBI’s pursuit of the man who led chants of “lock her up” at the Republican National Convention — and the subsequent firing of James Comey over his refusal to let go of the broader counterintelligence investigation — Mueller would not have been appointed.

Flynn always played a central role in this sprawling saga, and his own Russia connections never ceased to be problematic. His coming sentencing after a year of valuable cooperation with prosecutors brings us a step closer to learning why Trump was so invested in him.

In an attempt to secure a pay raise while sparing themselves the unseemliness of publicly voting for one, Albany lawmakers outsourced the job to a committee of four notable figures.

The committee, which must issue a report by Monday, has been delegated the authority to issue pay recommendations that would be binding unless rejected by the New York Legislature. By some accounts, that could mean a raise of nearly 90 percent. The thinking seemed to go that any decision by these well-respected men — the New York City comptroller, Scott Stringer; the former city comptroller, William Thompson Jr.; the state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli; and the former state comptroller, H. Carl McCall — would be beyond reproach. In terms of their personal reputations, that is certainly true.

But since it’s simply common sense that legislators should get no pay increase until they approve reforms to limit conflicts of interest — including a ban on outside income — it’s worth noting that the pay committee itself has conflicts, ones that could raise questions about its own independence.

McCall is the chairman of the State University of New York board of trustees, which depends on Albany lawmakers and the governor for state funding.

Thompson is the chairman of the board of trustees of the City University of New York, another institution at the mercy of the state officials asking for a raise.

Stringer is considering a run for mayor in 2021, a race in which candidates are certain to seek endorsements from state lawmakers.

We’re not saying that any of this would necessarily influence members’ decisions, but the reason to avoid such conflicts is to eliminate not only potentially corrupting influence but even its appearance, to bolster public confidence in the integrity of government decision-making.

Assembly members and state senators got their last raise 20 years ago. Some want their $79,500 salary to match the $148,500 salary of New York City Council members. But the council set that salary in 2016 after banning outside income.

We’ve written that the committee should not recommend a raise unless the Legislature approves the ethics reforms in special session; alternatively, the panel would be wise to conclude that no raise could take effect without ethics reforms. The first is admittedly a long shot, and the second is legally questionable.

Legislative leaders are, to say the least, cool to such suggestions. The Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie, told the committee last week that he could not see tying a raise to other legislation, and state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the incoming leader of the state Senate, has declined to commit to such reforms.

There are four people who can put an end to this nonsense: the members of the pay committee. Could legislators use a raise? Sure. But New Yorkers could use a cleaner government. Heastie’s predecessor, Sheldon Silver, and Dean Skelos, the man who ran the state Senate not long ago, both went to jail on corruption charges, as have many legislators and members of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s inner circle.

So, dear committee members, please tell lawmakers that to get a raise, they need to start cleaning up their mess.