WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday fired one of his transition team's staff members, Michael G. Flynn, the son of his designated national security adviser, for using Twitter to spread a fake news story about Hillary Clinton that this weekend led to an armed confrontation in a pizza restaurant in Washington.

The uproar over Flynn's Twitter post cast a harsh spotlight on the views that he and his father, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, aired on social media throughout the campaign. Both men have shared fake news stories alleging that Clinton committed felonies, and have posted their own Twitter messages that at times have crossed into Islamophobia.

Their social media musings apparently garnered little attention from Trump or his transition team before a North Carolina man fired a rifle Sunday inside Comet Ping Pong, which was the subject of false stories tying it and the Clinton campaign to a child sex trafficking ring.

Hours after the incident, the younger Flynn, 33, went on Twitter to say that until "Pizzagate" was proved false, it remained a story.

On Tuesday morning, after the post had attracted national attention and it was reported that Flynn had a transition team email address, Vice President-elect Mike Pence denied that Flynn had ever worked for the transition team, saying on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that he had "no involvement in the transition whatsoever."

But later in the morning, Jason Miller, a transition spokesman, said in a conference call that Flynn was no longer involved in the transition.

Miller did not say what prompted the move, but two other Trump transition officials said it was tied to his Twitter posting.