|
LTG Mike Flynn resigns as National Security Advisor
[NYT] WASHINGTON -- Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser, resigned on Monday night after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.Mr. Flynn, who served in the job for less than a month, said he had given "incomplete information" to about a telephone call he had with the ambassador in late December about American sanctions against Russia, weeks before Mr. Trump’s inauguration. Mr. Flynn previously had denied that he had any substantive conversations with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak, and Mr. Pence repeated that claim in television as recently as earlier this month. But on Monday, a former administration official said the Justice Department last month warned the White House that Mr. Flynn had not been fully forthright about his conversations with the ambassador. As a result, the Justice Department feared that Mr. Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. In his resignation letter, which the White House emailed to reporters, Mr. Flynn said he had held numerous calls with foreign officials during the transition. "Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador," he wrote. "I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology." The White House said in the statement that it was replacing Mr. Flynn with retired Lt. General Joseph Keith Kellogg, Jr., a Vietnam War veteran, as acting national security adviser.
But in doing so, he inadvertently illustrated the brevity of his tumultuous run at the National Security Council, and the chaos that has gripped the White House in the first weeks of the Trump administration -- and created a sense of uncertainty around the world. Officials said Mr. Pence has told others in the White House that he believes Mr. Flynn lied to him by saying he had not discussed the topic of sanctions on a call with the Russian ambassador in late December. Even the mere discussion of policy -- and the apparent attempt to assuage the concerns of an American adversary before Mr. Trump took office -- represents a remarkable breach of protocol. Same topic, at The Daily Caller. Posted by: Besoeker 2017-02-14 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=481225 |