National Security Adviser Mike Flynn Resigns After 25 Days on the Job

Reached by the Times, Manafort essentially said that he was never knowingly in contact with Russian spies but, hey, ya never know. “What did Flynn say”, columnist David Ignatius wonders, “and did it undercut the US sanctions?” And these transcripts were shared among various United States government agencies. Conway did not directly answer, but said Flynn’s role had become “unsustainable” since he misled the administration about his call with America’s Russian ambassador. Trump affiliates, including Pence, had backed Flynn’s claims.

A White House official denied the Wall Street report.

But Democrats were emboldened by Flynn’s departure and plan to press for more details. “But they recognize that they campaign with one assessment of reality, and now have to take a look at the rest of the information that’s only available once they take office”. “There is nothing that leads us to believe that this is an accurate account of what is actually happening”, the White House official said.

Questions are now being raised if Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak was cleared as part of Trump’s stated aim to improve ties with Russian Federation and whether he was asked to bring up sanctions or he was freelanced.

Flynn himself had been known to tweet links to false stories about Clinton. This was around the time those agencies were looking into the Russian hacking and influence campaign in the election, and they “sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians”. Pence was unequivocal: “Of course not”. On Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, made a big show of his willingness to get tough with the administration by ordering an investigation of the Trump team’s flaunting of security norms during a dinner party at Mar-a-Lago, when word reached the president that the North Korean regime had launched a missile designed for use in a nuclear attack.

Clinton weighing in, some Democrats focused on combating Trump say, could prove counterproductive because it would give Trump an easy out in dismissing the Russian Federation charges as nothing more than an attempt by Democrats to get a mulligan on the 2016 campaign.

On Tuesday, Spicer confirmed that Trump was first briefed on Flynn on January 26, after Yates issued her warning about Flynn’s discussion with Kislyak. Trump and his campaign, though, refused to acknowledge that.

“Our intelligence and law enforcement communities are unanimous in their assessment that Russian Federation worked to rig our election”.

Trump has not yet issued a comment about Flynn, either on Twitter or in one of his brief appearances before journalists over the weekend. “We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security”.

Kellogg had previously been appointed the National Security Council chief of staff and, along with Flynn, advised Trump on national security and foreign policy issues during the campaign.

Privately, some administration officials said that Flynn’s position has weakened and support for him has eroded largely because of a belief that he was disingenuous about Russian Federation and therefore could not be fully trusted going forward. So what did they chat about? It’s more like: What does Flynn know about Trump? Spicer said the president asked McGahn whether Flynn’s actions had violated the law. In separate press conferences in recent days, he has accepted questions only from friendly news outlets, like the Daily Caller website and Sinclair Broadcasting, which could be counted on not to bring up Flynn.

Flynn can not be allowed to fade away to some consulting or lobbying job (or Fox News post).

And Gardner continued to push President Donald Trump to take a stronger position with Russian Federation than what the new commander in chief has done so far.