WASHINGTON — President Trump requested Michael Flynn’s resignation after a weekslong review of his contacts with a Russian diplomat led Trump to conclude he could no longer trust his national security adviser, the White House said Tuesday. But the internal investigation, led by Trump’s government lawyer, found that Flynn hadn’t violated the law.
“The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for Gen. Flynn’s resignation,” press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters.
Spicer did not detail the nature of the “other questionable instances,” but officials pointed to news accounts of Flynn’s temper and of National Security Council dysfunction. And one career national security official told Yahoo News that Flynn had clashed last week with Defense Secretary James Mattis, whose judgment is known to carry great weight with Trump.
Trump removed Flynn ostensibly over a controversy involving contacts between the retired Army lieutenant general and a Russian diplomat during the transition. Apparently on Flynn’s say-so, top officials including Vice President Mike Pence and Spicer denied that the conversations touched on the question of U.S. sanctions imposed under the Obama administration in response to allegations that Russia tried to influence the 2016 election. Flynn at first expressed confidence that the sanctions didn’t come up, then later allowed that they might have. A bombshell Washington Post report on Friday disclosed that U.S. intelligence officials possessed transcripts of the calls that contradicted Flynn. Pence press secretary Marc Lotter said Pence “became aware” that Flynn misled him “based on news reports” on Feb. 9.
Olivier Knox
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