Because it's illegal to negotiate with a foreign power before you take office. By doing so, you are undermining the sitting president. Richard Nixon did this with Viet Nam in 1968, though this was not proven until after he died.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-t...

Thank you, the "before office" part seems to be the key here I was missing.

Update: Well actually, it looks like that “before office” part was quite literally “fake news”. The request to contact Russia was, in fact, after the election and during the transition: https://mobile.twitter.com/ABC/status/936805557029048321

I’m glad ABC formally retracted this “fake news”, but the fact that it existed at all is deeply disturbing and profoundly irresponsible and incompetent reporting from ABC and others.

I don't see why you think this is so significant. "During the transition" is still "before taking office."

But this was never really about violating that particular law, which is called the Logan Act. No one has ever been prosecuted for violating it. This is about the fact that Flynn lied about the meeting. This is not in dispute, not even by the Trump administration. So... why did Flynn lie? We don't yet know. But Robert Mueller does.

My opinion has nothing to do with this, because the distinction is extremely important as a matter of fact:

Not only is it fully legal for a transition team to work with other state leaders, but in fact the Obama administration explicitly stated in no uncertain terms that they don’t have any problem with it:

This video has been going around showing this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2vO3GNexHYI&t=28m25s

Obviously Flynn pleading guilty to lying IS genuine news, but we’ll have to wait and see exactly what it entails. But make no mistake: This news article made TWO huge claims of news events, and you can see them even in the title of the article. One wasn’t just wrong, it bore the exact opposite message of reality (Trump campaign subverting Obama’s authority, vs the incoming Trump administration working with foreign leaders under the direct blessing of the Obama administration).

I’m not here to defend Trump or Flynn or anyone else, except advocate for the apparently crumbling notion of journliastic integrity. It’s sad how little of it remains. If you want to see Trump impeached, by all means we should continue investigating and bring to light facts. But please, it is important to get the facts right.

Just that. I understand the Logan Act and all but I don't think anyone has ever been charged with that. And impeached over it? I think you need a super majority in the Senate for that - if Trump gets impeached over what's stated here it'll because of all the other crazy stuff he's done.

Who knows though - maybe Flynn has some real dirt viz a vie the Russians but color me skeptical.

It's bad if it was quid pro quo for helping to get trump elected...

He is going to plead guilty to lying to the FBI about those meetings.