Let the competition for top bunk begin. From a really good article over at Slate:

The prisoner’s dilemma is a famous problem in prosecutions and in academic game theory. A prisoner (or more illustratively in this case, a defendant) knows if he holds out against making a deal, and if all his co-defendants in other jail cells also hold out, they will all go free. However, if he holds out and another defendant confesses and implicates him, he will get a much worse sentence. If everyone confesses, everyone gets something in between.

So, the dilemma here is whether to assume everyone is holding out or whether to assume someone else is confessing to get a better deal. Up until now, only a very small figure—Papadopoulos—had confessed, not enough to make any central figure rethink his assumptions.

But now that Flynn is cooperating with Mueller, all bets are off. Everyone knows the next few cooperators will get deals, but the later you cooperate, the worse deal you get. The last (and biggest) co-conspirators get no deals at all. Flynn’s deal could be a moment that breaks the silence, and opens the gates for others to cooperate with Mueller to get a deal while there are still deals on the table.