On the day of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s sentencing for lying to the FBI, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer defended Flynn against the accusations and suggested the FBI took “advantage” of him with their questioning.
“Well, knowing what we know now is a lot different than what we knew at the time, which is again I think taking advantage of this and not do it properly is from what we can tell happened in the sense that they were going in and trying the talk to this guy without fully making him aware of the circumstances for which they were going in to talk to him,” he told Fox News on Monday. “So, you know, as we look back now I think a lot more makes sense as to what the real motives were back early on in the administration.”
Spicer claims Flynn was taken advantage of by the FBI pic.twitter.com/ILiPJe8in1
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) December 18, 2018
Spicer appears to be latching onto a talking point that’s been repeated by conservatives and Trump allies in recent days, after Flynn’s lawyers suggested that the former lieutenant general only lied to the FBI because he was caught off-guard by their interrogation when they came to the White House to meet with him in January 2017.
Spicer, who is not legally culpable in Flynn’s false statement, did at one time defend Flynn’s lies to the FBI. In January 2017, before Flynn was fired, Spicer told reporters that Flynn did not speak with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions in their phone call, which was later proven inaccurate.
