via WordPress http://ift.tt/2lfPHdY
(CNN)President Donald Trump asked for Michael Flynn’s resignation after he lost trust in his national security adviser for misleading Vice President Mike Pence over his calls with Russia’s ambassador, the White House said Tuesday.
Trump was also made aware of the Justice Department’s concerns about Flynn’s calls with the Russian ambassador, according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer.
The President’s counsel, Don McGahn, convened a meeting with Trump and a small circle of advisers.
“Immediately after the Department of Justice notified the White House counsel of the situation, the White House counsel briefed the President and a small group of senior advisers,” Spicer said.
Spicer insisted that Flynn had done nothing illegal but had lost the confidence of the President in an escalating drama that has focused scrutiny on Trump’s handling of the issue and his ties with Moscow.
“The level of trust between the President and Gen. Flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change,” Spicer told reporters. “The President was very concerned that Gen. Flynn had misled the vice president and others.”
But the President and some House Republicans launched a fight back, trying to focus attention on the source of disclosures about Flynn’s contacts with Russia that appear to have emerged from intelligence surveillance of the Russian embassy.
“The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington? Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?” Trump tweeted in his first public reaction to Flynn’s departure.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said the focus of any investigation should be how news of Flynn’s calls leaked out.
But the gravity of questions left by Flynn’s resignation meant it was unlikely that the President’s initial defense on the issue will hold up for long.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer is likely to face a buzzsaw of questions about the drama when he walks into the bear pit of the White House Briefing Room on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET.
Justice Department warning
In the short term, Trump is now faced with finding a replacement for Flynn at a time of deep uncertainty over the direction of his administration, and with a new foreign policy crisis looming after North Korea’s missile test at the weekend.
Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg is serving as acting national security adviser but is not expected to keep the job long term.
Senior administration officials told CNN that the front-runner for the post is former Vice Admiral Bob Harward, a former Navy SEAL who worked for Defense Secretary James Mattis at Central Command was the favorite.
But retired General and ex-CIA chief David Petraeus is also said to be making a run for the job.
Petraeus is widely respected in Washington over his stewardship of the Iraq war surge and is a consummate political player.
But Petraeus fell from grace over the mishandling of classified information and remains on probation.
Whoever is picked to head the national security council will face a tough job to restore morale and to flesh out the entire White House policy apparatus at a time of turmoil and uncertainty in the administration.
One senior administration official said the NSC was in a “holding pattern right now,” with no one knowing whether existing appointees would stay on.
Read more: http://ift.tt/2lduVvh
The post Trump, aware of DOJ warning, asked Flynn to resign after loss of trust appeared first on MavWrek Marketing by Jason
No comments:
Post a Comment