Rachel Maddow has a very plausible theory that Michael Flynn began throwing flames at the “deep state” in order to subvert the justice system and get a pardon. Fox News will probably be a willing partner in that effort.

As Maddow noted last night, prosecutors had once asked for Flynn “to be set free with nothing more than a stern talking-to” after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and cooperated with the Mueller investigation. But at a sentencing hearing last December, the judge suggested he might deserve the death penalty for treason and postponed the sentencing. Flynn’s next sentencing hearing comes up in December.

Since then, Flynn has replaced his lawyers with Sidney Powell, a regular Fox guest. She’s not just a Mueller hater, she “literally sells anti-Robert Mueller tee shirts on her website [saying] ‘creeps on a mission,’” Maddow pointed out.

Maddow then described the “odd turn” Flynn’s case has taken since hiring Powell:

MADDOW: Instead of just trying to convince that judge that Flynn in fact has been a good cooperator, prosecutors were right when they suggested no jail time for him, instead of that strategy, Flynn’s case has taken this big series of turns and now in court, including today, Flynn and his lawyers are arguing that it’s all a deep state conspiracy that must be exposed.

And the prosecutors and the FBI agents who worked on the investigation into him and the Russia investigation - it’s those prosecutors and those FBI agents who are the real criminals and they’re the ones who should all be arrested. And I know this is a plot line that totally makes sense at night and in the early morning on the Fox News Channel.

Maddow went on to say that while Flynn’s “Russia-hoax Bingo” probably will not persuade the judge at the next sentencing, and that prosecutors seem unlikely to continue recommending Flynn avoid jail, she predicted that Flynn sees a different path to freedom. It’s one that runs right through Fox News.

MADDOW: Reading through the way that Flynn and his lawyers are now approaching this, it seems to me, just as a layman watching this as drama, that they don’t mind now what the judge is going to sentence Mike Flynn to, they’re in there to throw as many bombs as possible, to get as much crazy-sounding stuff on the record, to make sure that what’s happening in that courtroom lines up as much as possible with what happens on the Fox News Channel because it seems clear that what they’re going for is not lenience from the judge but a pardon from the president. Right? This deep-state conspiracy theory, lock up all the FBI, lock up the prosecutors stuff is probably not going to move a normal judge but it will definitely move Fox News’ evening and early-morning programming which presumably is designed to move the one person who can give Mike Flynn a get-out-of-jail-free card no matter what he did, no matter what he already admitted doing.

The only problem I see with this strategy is that Trump may not be willing to pardon Flynn during a re-election campaign or an impeachment inquiry, should one occur. So instead of having prosecutors advocate on his behalf to the judge, Flynn may wind up sitting in jail hoping and waiting for Fox News to help him get out.

But I have no doubt this is exactly what Flynn has in mind and that Fox will do its best on his behalf.

Watch Maddow make the case below, from MSNBC’s September 10, 2019 The Rachel Maddow Show.