Flynn’s misdeeds become Trump’s towering trouble

Anyone watching the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency who has not observed that it is a shambles is in a trance. The man who won election claiming that Hillary Clinton was “unfit” to handle classified matters had himself briefed on North Korea’s missile tests in the middle of his restaurant, where his admirers could watch him and film the occasion. The candidate who chanted “Lock her up!” has had his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, forced to resign in a scandal that surely has more to it than meets the eye.

For starters, Flynn, selected to safeguard our national security, was so clueless that he thought he could speak with Russian officials shortly after the election about easing the Obama administration’s sanctions without the conversations being monitored. Then there is the little matter of his apparent violation of a criminal law barring private citizens, like he was at the time, from interfering with our relations with foreign powers.

In the light most favorable to President Trump, Flynn is simply a dolt, freelancing in his multiple conversations with the Russian government, blithely discussing removing sanctions without first alerting Trump either before or afterward.

That seems exceedingly unlikely, however. It would therefore be fitting for Congress to subpoena Flynn to testify under oath and ask him: Tell us who you talked to before you spoke with the Russians and afterwards, and tell us everything you said to them and they said to you. That is one way of knowing who in Trump Tower knew about his discussions.

But since Flynn’s performance as a truth-teller has not been impressive thus far, Congress can do more than that. It can subpoena the transcripts of Flynn’s discussions with the Russians, and release them to the American people. That will shed considerable light on what Flynn told the Russians — and under whose authority he was speaking to them.

Nor should Congress stop there. Then Acting Attorney General Sally Yates reportedly warned the Trump White House weeks ago that America’s national security adviser had made himself vulnerable to blackmail. That warning sat out there while Trump told reporters he didn’t know anything about it.

It’s hard to believe that so soon into the Trump administration we are in need of a Congress willing to ask the question Howard Baker made famous: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”

That, however, is where we are.