His appointment violated Justice Department regulations and federal law on appointment of a special counsel, because it failed to specify a criminal investigation that Mueller was tasked with.
Ignoring that, we were told he was investigating Russian influence on the 2016 election, and Trump’s involvement in it, and anything that comes up during that investigation.

How is Flynn’s lying in a conversation to the FBI that happened in 2017 about activity that happened after the election relevant to Mueller’s investigation? Why did he bring the charges instead of DOJ?

That depends on how you define ‘carefully’.
In general, they don’t have videotape or a transcript of the interview.
Everything comes from notes made by the agents.
This was big in DeflateGate, where a key damning piece of evidence is when asked why he went to the bathroom, the ballboy said ‘I don’t know.’ An actual transcript could show this in context.

Yea, I didn’t think thru the part where for a real vote to happen some evidence would have to be out there that changes the situation.

Again, how would people know who voted to convict, with 20+ votes and less than half of them admitting to it?

“My overall point is while Republicans around the country are willing to support Trump, I’m not convinced this will happen in Congress to the same degree. Even without a Russia story, the majority of the Republican Senators would prefer if Trump was gone.”

I’ve heard that before, burning don’t pretend to have a clue why there would be such a split.

I guess I forgot to account for the gap between House and Senate votes. A House vote that produced impeachment would already provide the backlash, and might make Senators cringe. Of course it is again a secret ballot so the same thing would happen.

My overall point is while Republicans around the country are willing to support Trump, I’m not convinced this will happen in Congress to the same degree. Even without a Russia story, the majority of the Republican Senators would prefer if Trump was gone.

Check out Bill Kristol’s Twitter feed.

Missed this in the other response.

I have twitter account, but use it for one reason: I follow a few comedians, and check the feed every few days for a few chuckles. I’m just not focused enough to use it for anything else.

Now what happens if the Senate vote is 70-30, and 47 Republicans claim they voted to acquit?

70-30 to convict? I think that’s what you mean so I’ll go with it. I’d be amazed the vote to impeach passed, and more amazed the Senate vote went the way it did. If the vote were that split, with that many Republicans saying “Hey, don’t blame me”, the Republicans who voted to convict would be politically crucified and the blitz against the Democratic Senators would be so extreme it would make the worst things we’ve seen today look no worse than drunk Uncle Fred farting during grandma’s Christmas dinner blessing.

I’d like to think that, in order for things to reach such a drastic stage, some news, that would clearly be evidence of serious criminal activity would have come to light. Even if the emotions of the moment prevented groups of people of seeing the need for impeachment and conviction, the evidence would be there for history to see.

I agree with the aftermath. Now what happens if the Senate vote is 70-30, and 47 Republicans claim they voted to acquit? I’m assuming McCain, Flake, Corker, Collins, and one of {Graham, Murkowski, Hatch, Ayotte} would declare as yes.
You have a point about actually getting to the vote.
Check out Bill Kristol’s Twitter feed. He thinks Trump will be defeated for the nomination in 2020 if he is not impeached.

Haven’t you been declaring various people as being Russian agents?

Interesting take MikeN, but I’ll stick with my response for this (possibly 100% wrong) reason. Even with the vote being secret, if things went against President Trump one, or the other, or both of these things would happen (again, purely my conjecture)

– The Republican core (not just the extreme right) would be extremely pissed, and vocal, and begin lobbying for “blood” against the folks in the House and Senate
– The Republicans who didn’t vote for impeachment would go public in order to
defend themselves

I don’t think they want to risk any of that.

I do think they are right if they have that opinion of Kristol.