Donald Trump’s White House just cut off its nose to spite Michael Flynn
In what appears to be a last ditch effort by Donald Trump and his White House to distance themselves from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, they’ve now managed to get a story out there about how the Trump transition team was trying to warn Flynn about his involvement with Russia. But in so doing, Trump’s White House is cutting off its nose to try to spite Flynn, because it’s actually admitting culpability in the process.
The story from Trump and his team all along was that they didn’t know Michael Flynn was on the phone discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador during the transition period, and that they didn’t know Flynn was taking money from sources close to the governments of Russia and Turkey. But now at this point, based on this story which has shown up in the Washington Post today (link), the Trump White House is admitting it knew Flynn was playing dirty – and that it simply wasn’t able to stop him.
But what do Trump and his White House have to gain from this new stance? First, it makes them look like they’ve been lying all along about not having known what Michael Flynn was up to. Second, it makes them look incompetent for not having done anything to prevent Flynn from becoming National Security Adviser. And third, it makes Trump himself look all the worse for refusing to fire Flynn back when Sally Yates tried to warn him about Flynn. Now we know that the Trump White House already knew Flynn was dirty before hearing from Yates. So why was she really fired?
This is where we’re at now, though. Donald Trump and his White House have been backed so far into a corner by the Michael Flynn saga that their only remaining play is a bad one. They’re admitting they knew Flynn was dirty and claiming they just couldn’t stop him. Trump and his team are now settling for defending the most narrow of ground, in one final attempt at fending off the growing suspicion that Flynn was dirty on Russia because Trump wanted him that way. Help fund Palmer Report
