TRUMP TWEET SUGGESTS HE KNEW FLYNN LIED TO FBI
Trump faces Watergate- era question:
Now that former national security aide Michael Flynn is working with prosecutors on the Russia investigation, President Trump’s critics are reviving a Watergate- era question.
What did the president know and when did he know it?
That question surfaced again Saturday after Trump tweeted that he fired Flynn because he lied to both him and the FBI, a statement that some observers said buttresses claims that the president tried to obstruct justice.
“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies,” Trump tweeted. “It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
Some critics pointed out that Trump’s tweet implies he knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he fired him — and before he reportedly asked former FBI Director James Comey to go easy on Flynn.
“If that is true, Mr. President, why did you wait so long to fire Flynn? Why did you fail to act until his lies were publicly exposed? And why did you pressure Director Comey to ‘ let this go?’” tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff,
D- Calif., top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
Reports Saturday night indicated that Trump associates were trying to put distance between the president himself and the tweet. The Associated Press and The New York Times, both quoting unidentified sources, said the tweet was actually crafted by John Dowd, one of the president’s personal attorneys.
Dowd apologized to White House officials for the tweet, according to the Times, saying he should have been more careful with his language in trying to parrot a statement released on Friday by another Trump lawyer, Ty Cobb.
Court filings say that a “senior” official in Trump’s transition team told him to contact officials from other governments, including Russia, meaning that special counsel Robert Mueller’s office will be looking at high- level aides and perhaps the president himself.
The Times reported Saturday that K. T. McFarland, a transition adviser to Trump, wrote in an email to a col- league that Flynn would be speaking with the Russian ambassador, hours after the Obama administration announced sanctions Dec. 29.
The sanctions were aimed at discrediting Trump’s victory and would make it harder for Trump to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the U. S. A. election to him,” McFarland wrote, according to the Times.
The Times wrote it’s unclear whether she thought the election had been thrown.
A White House attorney told the newspaper she meant Democrats were depicting it that way.
Rep. Eliot L. Engel, D- N. Y., top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs committee, said “it seems that more evidence is uncovered every day” about contacts between the Trump team and Russia as the latter sought to intervene in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump and other White House officials say there was no collusion between Trump’s team and the Russians, and that Flynn has nothing to tell that would put the president in legal jeopardy.
Outside legal analysts said the tea leaves indicate Trump and his senior aides have plenty to worry about.