Trump alters story on why he fired Flynn
US President Donald Trump has changed his story on why he fired Michael Flynn as his national security adviser, now suggesting he knew at the time that Flynn had lied to the FBI as well as to Vice-President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russians during the presidential transition.
That was a turnabout from his initial explanations that Flynn had to go because he hadn’t been straight with Pence about those contacts. Lying to the FBI is a crime, and one that Flynn acknowledged in pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the special counsel’s Russia investigation.
Trump’s tweet: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
Amid questions raised by the tweet, Trump associates tried to put distance between the President himself and the tweet. One person familiar with the situation said the tweet was actually crafted by John Dowd, one of the president’s personal lawyers. Dowd declined to comment.
In another email wrinkle in the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, the New York Times reported that emails among top Trump transition officials suggested that Flynn was in close contact with other senior members of the transition team before and after he spoke to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. A December 29 email from KT McFarland, a transition adviser to Trump, suggested that Russian sanctions announced by the Obama Administration had been aimed at discrediting Trump’s victory. She wrote that the sanctions could also make it more difficult for Trump to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the USA election to him,” she wrote. A White House lawyer told the newspaper McFarland only meant that Democrats were portraying it that way.
It’s unclear why Trump would cite lying to the FBI as a reason for firing Flynn. Doing so suggests the President knew at the time that Flynn had done something that is against the law, and therefore the investigation could not be as frivolous as he’s been portraying. It’s also unclear how he would know that, if information about Russian contacts had not reached him, as he has been implying in his own defence.