President Donald Trump on Friday continued the White House’s stonewalling on when exactly he knew former national security adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about his contacts with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“When did you find out Michael Flynn lied to the FBI? When did you find out?” an inquiring reporter asked, as Trump answered questions before boarding Marine One on his way to deliver a speech at the FBI National Academy graduation.
“What else is there?” he asked, sounding exasperated.
“You know the answer,” he said. “How many times has that question been asked?”
But journalists don’t know the answer; the White House has repeatedly refused to answer the question.
Flynn was fired, the White House said at the time, for lying to the vice president about his discussions of sanctions with Kislyak before the current administration took office. But after he pleaded guilty this month as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe to lying to the FBI about those conversations, Trump said in a tweet that he’d known that Flynn lied to the FBI — a new claim which further opened the President up to accusations of obstructing justice. Trump’s lawyer, John Dowd, later claimed to have written the tweet:
I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017
Reporters have repeatedly asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders about when Trump first knew Flynn had lied to the FBI. She’s directed those questions to Trump’s personal lawyers, who haven’t offered any answers, except when Dowd told Axios: “the tweet did not admit obstruction,” and that the President “cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice.”
Trump also told reporters Friday that “it’s a shame what’s happened to the FBI, but we’re going to rebuild the FBI.”
“There is absolutely no collusion, that has been proven,” he said, criticizing the cost of the investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “I didn’t make a phone call to Russia, I have nothing to do with Russia.”
I know the answer - Tramp knew that Flynn lied to the FBI when he told him to do so.
Simple.
“Yes, how many times can a man turn his head
Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”
-Bob D.
“There is absolutely no collusion, that has been proven,” he said, criticizing the cost of the investigations of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “I didn’t make a phone call to Russia, I have nothing to do with Russia.”
My God, this lying sack of shit can’t get a paragraph out without lying at least twice. Apparently he heard his latest groveling to Putin didn’t go over well.
Hey, Dump! You are the puppet, and a traitor. Deal with it.
Lots of interpretations flying around the twitterverse. I don’t think Trump expected that question and gave what I call a defensive aggressive response. He signaled to a cooperative witness that he may pardon him. That’s witness tampering and obstruction of justice. Cobb’s entire strategy has been about defending Trump against OOJ claims and letting others take the fall for conspiracy and other crimes relating to #trumprussia.
And I believe we have the answer – Q.E.D.