National Security Advisor Mike Flynn discussed hacking-related sanctions with the Russian ambassador before the Trump administration took office, contrary to the public assertions of Vice President Mike Pence and White House spokesman Sean Spicer, a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News.
The official said he was told there was no quid pro quo and that there has been no finding inside the government that Flynn did anything illegal.
But he said he was surprised when Flynn initially denied to the Washington Post, which first reported this story, that he discussed the sanctions on Russia with the ambassador. His spokesman later said he didn't recall whether he did, according to the Post.
On Friday, a spokesperson for Flynn told NBC News that Flynn "can't be 100 percent sure," but doesn't remember talking sanctions.
The FBI and intelligence officials became aware of the contents of the conversations because they were monitoring the communications of Russian diplomats, current and former officials have said.
Democrats are furious over the disclosure, a senior congressional staffer said, and critics, such as foreign policy scholar David Rothkopf, are accusing Flynn of having "lied." The White House did not immediately respond to NBC News's request for comment.
Flynn's contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S., were initially seen by critics as a potential violation of a 1799 law called the Logan Act, which prohibits a private citizen from negotiating with a foreign power in a dispute with the United States. But that law has rarely if ever been cited in a prosecution.
Flynn gave the Russian envoy any indication that the Trump administration would lift sanctions that were imposed to punish Russia for hacking and leaking emails during the U.S. presidential election, which intelligence officials say was meant to hurt Hillary Clinton and tip the election to Donald Trump.
The Russians did not respond as expected to the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the U.S. as part of the sanctions. President Putin said he would not retaliate with expulsions of U.S. diplomats, and instead invited the children of diplomatic personnel in Russia to a Christmas and New Year's party.
As a candidate and as president-elect, President Trump repeatedly expressed doubt about whether Russia had interfered in the election, despite a unanimous "high confidence" assessment of the intelligence community. He later acknowledged Russian's role, but he has continued to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Flynn spoke to Kislyak on Dec. 29, the same day the sanctions were announced, the White House has said, adding that the two also communicated by text message. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the conversations were about routine matters such as scheduling a phone call between Trump and Putin. Spicer said the topics did not include the sanctions.
Vice President Mike Pence, appearing on the CBS program "Face the Nation," said Flynn and the Russian ambassador "did not discuss anything having to do with the United States's decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia."
An administration official told NBC News that Vice President Pence's only source for saying Flynn did not discuss sanctions with the ambassador was Flynn himself.
The Post, which based its new reporting on nine sources, said Flynn twice denied on Wednesday that he discussed sanctions with Kislyak, but then changed his answer on Thursday.
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., told NBC News that the embassy "does not comment on our conversations with local contacts — any local contacts — which are being conducted every day. We respect them."
Flynn, a retired Army general who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency until he was forced out early during the Obama administration, has been under fire for his paid relationship with the television network RT, which is funded by the Russian government.
He said he was paid to appear at a 2015 RT dinner in Moscow, but he hasn't said how much. He likened RT — which U.S. intelligence agencies say is a Russian propaganda outlet — to CNN and MSNBC.
Last week a group of House Democrats sent a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis calling for a Pentagon investigation into the matter, given Flynn's status as a retired general.
On Friday, Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee said the possibility that Flynn discussed sanctions with Kislyak "raises serious questions of legality and fitness for office. If he did so, and then he and other administration officials misled the American people, his conduct would be all the more pernicious."
A few Democrats issued statements calling for Trump to fire Flynn.
"It's clear that concerns about General Flynn's ties to Russia were well warranted," said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "The President must relieve General Flynn immediately."
Others called for further investigation.
"That General Flynn may have misled the vice president of the United States and others raises the most serious questions about his ability to continue serving as national security advisor," said Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member. "I hope federal law enforcement professionals investigate this matter immediately. Any effort to undermine our nation's foreign policy - even during a transition period — may be illegal and must be taken seriously."
Donald Trump is trying to implement some sartorial rigour within his administration. According to intelligence from the White House, the president believes his staff should “have a certain look” and aspire to “be sharply dressed”. Men should wear a tie. Female colleagues have been told to “dress like a woman”, whatever that means. Perhaps he wants them to swing through the White House on tree vines, wearing jungle pelts in the manner of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Jane?
As with so many of his executive orders so far, it’s predictably disappointing. And possibly misguided. One of the few joys to find in this new world order is in observing just how uniformly shambolic and ill-matched it is. I assumed the administration’s chaotic deportment was in fact a marvellously choreographed campaign to deflect “the opposition party” from the fine details of the day.
What better way to disguise your flailing incompetence at a press briefing, for example, than by wearing a tie of such exceptional ugliness that no one will really hear what you’re trying to say? Sean Spicer knows how to make headlines. The White House press secretary’s clumsy attempts to explain the botched military operations that led to the death of civilians and a Navy seal following a raid on Yemen last week were overlooked as focus fell instead on the diagonally striped monstrosity in poison yellow and navy tied around his neck.
I just assumed the tie was sartorial spin. Call it Project Blind: dull the people to the ineptitude of your policymaking and practice by wearing an eye-wateringly unattractive wardrobe. Donald Trump’s ill-fitting suit, Fanta complexion and feathery comb-over are already well documented: but he looks almost suave compared to the unshaven Steve Bannon, with his livid red proboscis, stained T-shirts and straining shirt buttons. So slovenly is he, and so swollen with choler, he seems to ooze with an especially Chaucerian brand of humour. Watching him slumped in his flannel shirts in the Oval Office, I am reminded of The Nun’s Priest Tale: “For God’s love, as tak som laxatyf.”
Then there’s Mike Pence, who wears smarter white button-down shirts, electric-coloured ties and navy suits, with all the self-possession of a Weeble. Or secretary of defence James Mattis, cadaverous in camo. Attorney-general Jeff Sessions wears pocket-sized suits and ties in reflux yellow and spotted vermilion: he carries them both with the skittery, overly keen mien of a warm-up host.
For comic opportunities alone, I hope Trump has directed his female staffers to follow the lead of Kellyanne Conway in their efforts to look “like a woman”. The counsellor to the president is the undisputed star of this fashion circus: a feisty, former cheerleader who, to judge by the state of her inauguration ensemble, takes her style inspiration from the Peruvian refugee Paddington Bear.
; a muddle of lurid jackets and look-at-me ensembles in primary brights — citrine, vermilion, blood — that are every bit as jarring as her coarse rhetoric. She embraces the type of womanly power glamour observed by weather girls and newscasters: her sleeveless dresses testify to a woman’s right to bare arms or, in the case of the ruffled gold jacket she wore to canvass at Trump Tower last November, the right to resemble a gilded valance sheet. But time has been cruel to Conway. Where once she might have been described as perky, the first weeks in office have lent her sleep-starved, kohl-rimmed looks the ravaged expression of a raptor. I can’t wait to see what she’ll wear next.
Whatever about “dressing sharp”. It must take a concerted effort, a willingness even, to look so collectively dreadful. It’s also in keeping with the evolution (or should that be devolution?) of world-leader style. After years of slick homogeny on the political stage — slim, dark-suited, smug — we’re now seeing a return of the fashion maverick: think Yanis Varoufakis and his football manager leathers, or Nigel Farage in his Toad-of-Toad-Hall Crombie and tulip-pink ties.
Similarly, British prime minister Theresa May’s affection for a voluminous tartan suit by Vivienne Westwood has been much discussed in recent weeks. As with the fabled leopard-print shoes in which she strode to power, May has worn the suits in moments of political — and personal — vulnerability, to announce her determination to lead the Conservative party, for example, or lay down a challenging Brexit strategy. Like Spicer’s tie, the tartan suit has proven a nifty decoy: capable of sucking up headlines and loud enough to distract from the political business of the day.
It may look daft, but the wacky wardrobe is a formidable weapon: bad clothes stimulate alternative conversations, they’re diverting and normalising. Conway’s flowerpot hats are awful, Bannon’s flak jacket is filthy and Spicer’s ties are plain obnoxious, but they all throw light on the individual that wears them. They give the wearer personality. Even more significantly, the clothes are humanising: one could almost feel sorry for Spicer; while Bannon’s gorilla-like bearing has become as morbidly fascinating as his guerrilla-style of governance. It’s all quite stupefying to behold — which, presumably, is the point.
So rather than insist his aides smarten up, if I were Trump I’d order everyone to keep on clowning around: brighter ties, Hawaiian print shirts, lots of gold lamé. Dressing like a fool never seemed so wise.
