WASHINGTON ― As questions mount about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s relationship with Russian officials, the Trump White House has settled on its defense: It’s all former President Barack Obama’s fault.
If President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser was such bad news, this theory goes, Trump’s predecessor should have stripped him of his security clearance rather than renew it a year ago.
Trump himself set the tone with a Monday morning tweet: “General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration - but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that.”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer expanded on this during his daily media briefing a few hours later. “The question that you have to ask yourself really is, if President Obama was truly concerned about Gen. Flynn, why didn’t he suspend Gen. Flynn’s security clearance, which they had just reapproved months earlier?” Spicer said.
Obama staffers responded on Monday by saying Obama had personally warned Trump about Flynn two days after Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory.
As a matter of course, national security agencies renew security clearances for top former members in case they are brought back for consultation based on their expertise.
Spicer did not say whether the Trump transition team did any independent vetting of Flynn or if anyone other than Flynn had been considered for the job.
Flynn entered Trump’s inner circle during the Republican primary campaign, when he became the first senior military official to back Trump in early 2016. Two years earlier, the Obama administration had fired him from his job running the Defense Intelligence Agency, reportedly because of Flynn’s poor management skills.
The Trump administration has claimed Flynn was fired because he opposed Obama’s plan for fighting terrorism.
“President Obama made it known that he wasn’t exactly a fan of General Flynn’s, which is ― frankly, shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone,” Spicer said on Monday. “Given that Gen. Flynn had worked for President Obama, was an outspoken critic of President Obama’s shortcomings.”
Regardless of Flynn’s relationship with Obama, some top Trump advisers were reportedly wary of Flynn’s ties to Russia, as well. During the transition, Flynn spoke multiple times with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, even discussing the possibility of lifting the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia for its invasion and continued occupation of Crimea.
It was Flynn’s failure to disclose those contacts that ultimately led to his firing just three weeks after Trump’s inauguration. Sally Yates, then the acting attorney general at the Department of Justice, warned White House Counsel Don McGahn on Jan. 26 that Flynn had made false statements about his discussions with Kislyak. But Trump didn’t act until a Washington Post story revealed that two weeks later.
And he continued to defend Flynn. “Michael Flynn, Gen. Flynn, is a wonderful man,” Trump said at a Feb. 15 news conference. “I think he has been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as I call it, the fake media, in many cases. And I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.”
U.S. intelligence agencies have determined that Russia worked to hurt Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and help Trump ahead of Election Day. The FBI and committees in the House and Senate are now investigating that interference.
Yates’ appearance before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday afternoon sparked another presidential tweet. This time, Trump attempted to turn attention away from Russian election meddling and toward leaks of the investigation to the media.
“Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel,” Trump wrote.
Spicer responded to questions about Trump’s statement with what’s become a common response: “The tweet speaks for itself.”