"There was not a darn thing wrong with what he was doing by communicating to these other leaders," Reince Priebus said.

| AP Photo Priebus: 'Nothing wrong' with Flynn talking about sanctions with Russian ambassador

White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said there was "nothing wrong" with former national security adviser Mike Flynn talking about sanctions against Russia with the country's ambassador.

"No, there's nothing wrong with having a conversation about sanctions," Priebus said in an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation" to be broadcast Sunday. "And there's nothing wrong about having a conversation about the fact that the Obama administration put further sanctions in place and expelled some folks out of the United States. There's nothing wrong with that topic coming up in a conversation."


Host John Dickerson asked Priebus whether President Donald Trump thought it was acceptable that Flynn was "in conversation about sanctions with the Russian ambassador" before Trump took office.

"There was not a darn thing wrong with what he was doing by communicating to these other leaders," Priebus said.

Dickerson, however, pressed Priebus several times, asking whether it was OK for Flynn to specifically talk about the sanctions.

"The point is that there was nothing wrong. He didn't do anything wrong," Priebus said.

Flynn, who was Trump's first pick for national security adviser, was ousted following revelations he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of conversations he had held with the Russian ambassador.