Michael Flynn Resigns as National Security Adviser

Michael T. Flynn, the national security
adviser, resigned on Monday night after it
was revealed that he had misled Vice
President Mike Pence and other top White
House officials about his conversations
with the Russian ambassador to the United
States.
Mr. Flynn, who served in the job for less
than a month, said he had given
“incomplete information” regarding a
telephone call he had with the ambassador
in late December about American sanctions
against Russia, weeks before Mr. Trump’s
inauguration. Mr. Flynn previously had
denied that he had any substantive
conversations with Ambassador Sergey I.
Kislyak, and Mr. Pence repeated that claim
in television interviews as recently as this
month.
But on Monday, a former administration
official said the Justice Department warned
the White House last month that Mr. Flynn
had not been fully forthright about his
conversations with the ambassador. As a
result, the Justice Department feared that
Mr. Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail
by Moscow.
In his resignation letter, which the White
House emailed to reporters, Mr. Flynn said
he had held numerous calls with foreign
officials during the transition.
“Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of
events, I inadvertently briefed the vice
president-elect and others with incomplete
information regarding my phone calls with
the Russian ambassador,” he wrote. “I have
sincerely apologized to the president and
the vice president, and they have accepted
my apology.”
“I am tendering my resignation, honored to
have served our nation and the American
people in such a distinguished way,” Mr.
Flynn wrote.
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The White House said in the statement that
it was replacing Mr. Flynn with retired Lt.
Gen. Joseph K. Kellogg Jr. of the Army, a
Vietnam War veteran, as acting national
security adviser.
Mr. Flynn was an early and ardent
supporter of Mr. Trump’s candidacy, and in
his resignation he sought to the praise the
president. “In just three weeks,” Mr. Flynn
said, the new president “has reoriented
American foreign policy in fundamental
ways to restore America’s leadership
position in the world.”
But in doing so, he inadvertently illustrated
the brevity of his tumultuous run at the
National Security Council, and the chaos
that has gripped the White House in the
first weeks of the Trump administration —
and created a sense of uncertainty around
the world.
By Monday evening, Mr. Flynn’s fortunes
were rapidly shifting — his resignation
came roughly seven hours after Kellyanne
Conway, the counselor to the president,
said on MSNBC that Mr. Trump had “full
confidence” in the retired general.
And when he did step down, it happened
so quickly that his resignation does not
appear to have been communicated to
National Security Council staff members,
two of whom said they learned about it
from news reports.
Officials said Mr. Pence had told others in
the White House that he believed Mr.
Flynn lied to him by saying he had not
discussed the topic of sanctions on a call
with the Russian ambassador in late
December. Even the mere discussion of
policy — and the apparent attempt to
assuage the concerns of an American
adversary before Mr. Trump took office —
represented a remarkable breach of
protocol .
The F.B.I. has been examining Mr. Flynn’s
phone calls as he came under growing
questions about his interactions with
Russian officials and his management of
the National Security Council. The
blackmail risk envisioned by the Justice
Department would stem directly from Mr.
Flynn’s attempt to cover his tracks with his
bosses. The Russians knew what had been
said on the call; thus, if they wanted Mr.
Flynn to do something, they could threaten
to expose the lie if he refused.
The Justice Department’s warning to the
White House was first reported on Monday
night by The Washington Post .
In addition, the Army has been
investigating whether Mr. Flynn received
money from the Russian government
during a trip he took to Moscow in 2015,
according to two defense officials. Such a
payment might violate the Emoluments
Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits
former military officers from receiving
money from a foreign government without
consent from Congress. The defense
officials said there was no record that Mr.
Flynn, a retired three-star Army general,
filed the required paperwork for the trip.
Earlier Monday, Sean Spicer, the White
House press secretary, told reporters that
“the president is evaluating the situation.”
Mr. Spicer said Mr. Trump would be talking
to Mr. Pence and others about Mr. Flynn’s
future.
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California,
the top Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, said in a statement late Monday
that Mr. Flynn’s resignation would not
close the question of his contact with
Russian officials.
“General Flynn’s decision to step down as
national security adviser was all but
ordained the day he misled the country
about his secret talks with the Russian
ambassador,” said Mr. Schiff, noting that
the matter is still under investigation by
the House committee.
The White House had examined a
transcript of a wiretapped conversation that
Mr. Flynn had with Mr. Kislyak in
December, according to administration
officials. Mr. Flynn originally told Mr.
Pence and others that the call was limited
to small talk and holiday pleasantries.
But the conversation, according to officials
who saw the transcript of the wiretap, also
included a discussion about sanctions
imposed on Russia after intelligence
agencies determined that Mr. Putin’s
government tried to interfere with the 2016
election on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Still,
current and former administration officials
familiar with the call said the transcript
was ambiguous enough that Mr. Trump
could have justified either firing or
retaining Mr. Flynn.
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Mr. Trump, however, had become
increasingly concerned about the continued
fallout over Mr. Flynn’s behavior,
according to people familiar with his
thinking, and told aides that the media
storm around Mr. Flynn would damage the
president’s image on national security
issues.
It was not clear whether Mr. Kellogg would
be asked to stay on as Mr. Flynn’s
permanent replacement. White House
officials were already discussing several
potential contenders for the job, and Mr.
Trump is consulting Jim Mattis, the
secretary of defense and a retired four-star
general. Among the options are David H.
Petraeus, the former C.I.A. director, and
Thomas P. Bossert, the head of Mr. Trump’s
domestic security council. Mr. Petraeus,
also a retired four-star general, was forced
out as the director of the C.I.A. because of
an affair with his biographer, to whom he
passed classified information. Mr. Petraeus
would not need confirmation by the Senate
as national security adviser.
Mr. Petraeus is expected to be at the White
House on Tuesday, said a senior
administration official who was not
authorized to discuss the meeting and
spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Mr. Flynn’s concealment of the call’s
content, combined with questions about his
management of his agency and reports of a
demoralized staff, put him in a precarious
position less than a month into Mr. Trump’s
presidency.
Few members of Mr. Trump’s team were
more skeptical of Mr. Flynn than the vice
president, numerous administration
officials said. Mr. Pence, who used the false
information provided by Mr. Flynn to
defend him in a series of television
appearances, was incensed at Mr. Flynn’s
lack of contrition for repeatedly
embarrassing him by withholding the
information, according to three
administration officials familiar with the
situation.
Mr. Flynn and Mr. Pence spoke twice in
the past few days about the matter, but
administration officials said that rather
than fully apologize and accept
responsibility, the national security adviser
blamed his faulty memory — which irked
the typically slow-to-anger Mr. Pence.
The slight was compounded by an episode
late last year when Mr. Pence went on
television to deny that Mr. Flynn’s son,
who had posted conspiracy theories about
Hillary Clinton on social media, had been
given a security clearance by the transition
team. The younger Mr. Flynn had, indeed,
been given such a clearance, even though
his father had told Mr. Pence’s team that
he had not.
Officials said classified information did not
appear to have been discussed during the
conversation between Mr. Flynn and the
ambassador, which would have been a
crime. The call was captured on a routine
wiretap of diplomat’s calls, the officials
said.
But current Trump administration officials
and former Obama administration officials
said that Mr. Flynn did appear to be
reassuring the ambassador that Mr. Trump
would adopt a more accommodating tone
on Russia once in office.
Former and current administration officials
said that Mr. Flynn urged Russia not to
retaliate against any sanctions because an
overreaction would make any future
cooperation more complicated. He never
explicitly promised sanctions relief, one
former official said, but he appeared to
leave the impression that it would be
possible.
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During his 2015 trip to Moscow, Mr. Flynn
was paid to attend the anniversary
celebration of Russia Today, a television
network controlled by the Kremlin. At the
banquet, he sat next to Mr. Putin.
Mr. Flynn had notified the Defense
Intelligence Agency, which he once led,
that he was taking the trip. He received a
security briefing from agency officials
before he left, which is customary for
former top agency officials when they
travel overseas.
Still, some senior agency officials were
surprised when footage of the banquet
appeared on RT, and believed that Mr.
Flynn should have been more forthcoming
with the agency about the nature of his
trip to Russia.
The next month, the agency’s director, Lt.
Gen. Vincent Stewart, sent a memo to
agency staff members saying agency
officials should not provide briefings to
former agency leaders during the
presidential campaign.
James Kudla, an agency spokesman, said
the memo was not directly the result of Mr.
Flynn’s trip to Russia, but rather an effort
by General Stewart to ensure that the
agency was not becoming enmeshed in
politics.
“Was the Russia trip one element of it?
Yes,” he said. “But it was more broadly to
ensure that other former senior officials
and D.I.A. staff knew what the rules are to
avoid the perception of taking sides.”
Defense officials said the White House
would have to determine what penalty, if
any, Mr. Flynn should face if he were found
to have violated the Emoluments Clause.
Capt. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department
spokesman, declined to comment.
Correction: February 13, 2017
An earlier version of this article misstated
the day on which the White House sent out a
series of conflicting signals about Michael T.
Flynn, the national security adviser. It was
Monday, not Tuesday.