One of the biggest takeaways from a new NYT report on Michael Flynn is the existence of a curiously-worded email from Trump transition adviser KT McFarland.

Per The New York Times, this is how that exchange went down:

Mr. Bossert forwarded Ms. McFarland’s Dec. 29 email exchange about the sanctions to six other Trump advisers, including Mr. Flynn; Reince Priebus, who had been named as chief of staff; Stephen K. Bannon, the senior strategist; and Sean Spicer, who would become the press secretary. Mr. Obama, she wrote, was trying to “box Trump in diplomatically with Russia,” which could limit his options with other countries, including Iran and Syria. “Russia is key that unlocks door,” she wrote. She also wrote that the sanctions over Russian election meddling were intended to “lure Trump in trap of saying something” in defense of Russia, and were aimed at “discrediting Trump’s victory by saying it was due to Russian interference.” “If there is a tit-for-tat escalation Trump will have difficulty improving relations with Russia, which has just thrown U.S.A. election to him,” she wrote. Mr. Bossert replied by urging all the top advisers to “defend election legitimacy now.”

As the Times notes, it’s “not clear” whether she believes the election was thrown, and one White House lawyer offered the defense that she was characterizing how Democrats are talking about it.

But the potentially damning email is raising quite a lot of eyebrows online:

to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,” she wrotehttps://t.co/T93DbzV4aR pic.twitter.com/Fs2LJuVxu0 — Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) December 2, 2017

Buried lede of the year: Trump’s Deputy NSA advised going easy on Moscow because they had “just thrown the U.S.A. election to him” https://t.co/C5YiQujFgH — Scott Gilmore (@Scott_Gilmore) December 2, 2017

Trump Transition official says she’s worried that sanctions would make it harder to ease tentions with Russia, after it had just thrown the election to Trump. In an email. This sounds even worse than collusion. https://t.co/WRul6jhMNw pic.twitter.com/iLhtLW8lyD — Mo Elleithee (@MoElleithee) December 2, 2017

so a top Trump transition official casually wrote that Russia had "thrown the election to" Trumphttps://t.co/AXOLY4vnEQ pic.twitter.com/Yo63wwdux5 — Jesse Lehrich (@JesseLehrich) December 2, 2017

Maybe don't put this in writing, KT McFarland… pic.twitter.com/cqWnVDAApg — Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 2, 2017

Given the U.S. intelligence assessment and the ample, overt evidence of Russia's interference in Trump's favor, it's hard to imagine that KT McFarland made this statement only as a characterization of Democrats' allegations. She knew. They all knew. https://t.co/UhROaFhsg4 pic.twitter.com/ntlpTPKdwl — Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) December 2, 2017

Well, that's quite a thing for a Trump official to have said in an email. https://t.co/CHqYHf2b9b pic.twitter.com/Cq7YvUWSJ2 — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) December 2, 2017

Newly leaked Trump transition emails suggest: – Flynn didn’t act alone on Russia sanctions (reinforcing details from plea) – Trump official privately said that undercutting sanctions was key because Russia “has just thrown the U.S.A. election to” Trump https://t.co/34c1kCtRKc — Ari Melber (@AriMelber) December 2, 2017

at this point waiting to see a story about a slack room named “crimes” https://t.co/lGfMHgMk8Z — ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) December 2, 2017

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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