Gone Flynnsane

Trump calls rap ‘a shame,’ rips Hil – but he knew of lie

PRESIDENT TRUMP defended disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Monday, while a new report indicated he was aware Flynn had “misled” the FBI before he fired him.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about conversations with Russia’s ambassador, and is cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian tampering in the 2016 election.

“Flynn lied and they destroyed his life,” Trump told reporters Monday morning en route to a speaking engagement in Utah. “I think it’s a shame.”

The retired Army general had acknowledged lying to the feds about discussing an impending UN sanctions vote with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, in December 2016 during the transition.

He now faces up to six months in jail.

“He’s led a very strong Trump said. “And I feel very badly.”

Trump tried to pivot the blame to Hillary Clinton, who lost the election more than a year ago.

“She lied many times. Nothing happened for her,” he said. “Flynn lied and it’s like they ruined his life.”

Clinton last year was under investigation for her use of a private email server, and met with the FBI on July 2, 2016.

Unlike Clinton, Flynn has acknowledged lying. Trump said life,” when he fired Flynn weeks into the job it was because he’d lied to Vice President Pence about the same phone calls. Trump’s account tweeted over the weekend that he was aware Flynn had lied to the FBI at the time as well, but his lawyer John Dowd later claimed that wasn’t true — and that he’d written the tweet for Trump.

But CNN reported Monday that White House counsel Don McGahn had indeed made Trump aware that Flynn had likely misled the FBI as well as Pence. It’s not clear if Trump knew at the time that would be criminal.

After Trump canned Flynn, then-FBI Director James Comey said the President suggested he not prosecute Flynn, an episode Mueller is investigating as possible obstruction of justice.

Dowd said that’s not fair. The “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under (the Constitution’s Article II) and has every right to express his view of any case,” he told Axios. But both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton faced impeachment counts related to obstruction.

Meanwhile, Flynn’s former deputy K.T. McFarland may be in legal hot water as well.

An email obtained by The New York Times shows she told a member of Trump’s transition team that Flynn would be speaking with the Russian ambassador. She’d denied knowing anything about the discussion in testimony before the Senate.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) told the paper the omission was “alarming.”