What Did Trump Know and When Did He Know It?

Michael Flynn is gone…resigned or fired depending upon which White House source you believe. But I am sure that President Trump made him fall on his sword.

Michael Flynn, the national security adviser to President Trump, resigned late Monday over revelations about his potentially illegal contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and his misleading statements about the matter to senior Trump administration officials.

Flynn stepped down amid mounting pressure on the Trump administration to account for its false statements about Flynn’s conduct after The Washington Post reported Monday that the Justice Department had warned the White House last month that Flynn had so mischaracterized his communications with the Russian diplomat that he might be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.

In his resignation letter, Flynn said he had “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president.”

I had called for his resignation a few days ago. I was happy to see him go and not at all surprised once this became public. But Mr. Flynn’s problem is only the surface of the problem.

To me there is still a big question about exactly happened in the White House. First of all, the DOJ notified the White House about the issues surrounding Mr. Flynn and his contact with the Russian ambassador. I would expect that the information would reach the president (If not the staff surrounding him is negligent in the extreme). So the president knew and was going to let it pass? He was all right with it? And it only became a problem once it became public. So how deep does President Trump’s attachment to Russia go? Is he a traitor to his oath of office? To the nation? And the vice president was left in the dark? I really hope the resignation didn’t totally hinge on Mr. Flynn lying to the vice president. But based on what we already know about the president, appearances are more important than substance.

The [Washington] Post reported Monday that then-acting U.S. attorney general Sally Q. Yates told the White House counsel last month that Flynn’s misleading statements to Pence and others made him vulnerable to blackmail by Russia, whose own government would have known that sanctions were discussed.

The White House appears to have let its repeated false statements about Flynn stand for weeks after that notification from Yates, and has yet to account for what it did with the warning she conveyed. The disclosures about Flynn have added to the swirling suspicion about the Trump administration’s relationship with Moscow…

But if you look at Mr. Flynn’s history, the question crops up. Is he so delusional that he thought he could get away with talking to the ambassador? He was a general, yes, but is he a sufficiently skilled diplomat that he would have taken this on himself? As a general would he be ready and willing to obey his next commander-in-chief?

So the GOP shouldn’t overlook this issue. Mr. Flynn is probably guilty of violating the Logan Act and other laws. But was he instructed to take these actions by other actors in the White House? By the then president-elect? There are some questions that need to be answered.

I am looking at you, Representative Jason Chaffetz.

PS: more background on the resignation.