White House press secretary Sean Spicer blamed the Justice Department on Tuesday for the drawn-out controversy surrounding former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S.
“This idea of why did it take so long, I think the first question should be where was the Department of Justice in this?” Spicer said during his daily press briefing.
Flynn resigned late Monday, days after reports revealed that he discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Spicer blamed the Justice Department for notifying the White House of Flynn’s activities nearly two weeks after Flynn first raised the issue.
“The Department of Justice didn’t notify the White House or the White House counsel at that time in the transition phase until 13 days later,” he said. “We were making statements based on what General Flynn was telling us starting on Jan. 13th. The vice president went out on the 15th, right? They didn’t notify the White House counsel’s office until Jan. 26th.”
He said that Trump was “immediately informed” at that point and asked the White House counsel to review Flynn’s activities.
Current and former U.S. officials told several news outlets last week that Flynn and Kislyak discussed U.S. sanctions during one call, contradicting members of Trump’s administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, who previously denied that they did.
Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates told the White House in January that she believed Flynn had misrepresented his conversations with Kislyak, according to current and former U.S. officials cited in a Monday report by the Washington Post.
Trump later fired Yates for ordering the Justice Department not to defend his controversial executive order temporarily barring visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
