Trump tainted by aide’s contacts

PRESIDENT WAS IN THE KNOW FOR WEEKS National security advisor quits over his pre-poll Kremlin chats cause scandal.

The White House battled this week to insulate Donald Trump from a scandal over his top aide’s contacts with Russia, as it emerged the president was aware of the problem for weeks before acting.

With calls for an independent investigation gathering pace, the White House admitted that Trump was told three weeks ago that national security advisor Michael Flynn may have misled colleagues about his Kremlin contacts.

The retired three-star general and former head of US defence intelligence initially denied discussing sanctions strategy with Russia’s ambassador Sergey Kislyak before taking office. That may have breached US law on negotiating with foreign powers, and at minimum was a significant break with the norm that incoming administrations accept the US has “one government at a time”.

Flynn was asked to resign on Monday, after what the White House said were weeks of internal investigation that turned up no evidence of wrongdoing but “eroded” trust.

Law enforcement and intelligence agents intercepted calls and obtained phone records showing that members of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other aides had repeated contacts with top Russian intelligence officials in the year that preceded the November 8 presidential election, The New York Times reported.

The White House denied that Trump had instructed Flynn to discuss the possibility that Obama-era sanctions would be rolled back. “No, absolutely not,” said White House spokesperson Sean Spicer, when asked whether such a conversation took place.

When first informed, on January 26, that Flynn may have made misleading statements about his talks with Russia’s envoy, Spicer said the president “instinctively thought that General Flynn did not do anything wrong”. – AFP