by Brittany Greve
Michael Flynn, the ex-national security adviser in the Trump administration who resigned after just one month in the position due to his alleged involvement with a Russian ambassador during the election, is back in the forefront of the news after he plead guilty this past week to those same allegations almost nine months later.
Flynn said he had given “incomplete information” regarding a telephone call he had in late December about American sanctions against Russia. According to the New York Times, it has been revealed that American intelligence agencies had grown concerned about Flynn’s communications with the Russians months before Flynn claims. He was interviewed by F.B.I. agents at the White House four days after the president was sworn into office. The acting attorney general warned the White House shortly after the interview that Flynn might be compromised by the Russians.
Since Flynn’s guilty plea on Friday morning, President Trump has posted more than 10 back-to-back tweets making clear that Flynn’s decision to cooperate with the investigation has had no impact on him.
President Trump’s private lawyer, John Dowd, wrote a tweet for the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account about the firing of Michael Flynn shortly after the information was released. “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” the tweet read. “He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”
The documents involved in the trial do not disclose what President Trump knew about Flynn’s discussions. However, President Trump’s lawyers believe that the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner directed Flynn to discuss a United Nations resolution.
According to the Washington Post, though President Trump made no public comments on Flynn’s guilty plea, Ty Cobb, the President’s personal lawyer, made it clear that Flynn’s guilty plea was an isolated event, one that has not implicated anyone else in his wrong-doing. Though the court documents show that no one but Mr. Flynn was involved, this guilty plea has added onto the number of questionable resignations of advisors on Trump’s administration, like Anthony Scaramucci and Michael Short.
