White House chief of staff Reince Priebus has defended former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying President Trump's former aide "didn't do anything wrong" in discussing sanctions with Russia's ambassador.

"Michael Flynn as NSA director, his job is to talk to foreign leaders, yes, including the Russian ambassador and other ambassadors across the world," Priebus said in an interview airing on CBS's "Face the Nation."

"And other people, other experts have also said the same thing, that there was not a darn thing wrong with what he was doing by communicating to these other leaders."

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CBS anchor John Dickerson pressed Priebus on whether he thought it was wrong to discuss the Obama-era sanctions with the Russian official before Trump took office last month.

"He didn't do anything wrong," Priebus responded. "There's nothing wrong with having a conversation about sanctions."

"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," he added.

Trump has defended his firing of Flynn on Monday, acknowledging that he had misled Vice President Pence about his discussions with Moscow's envoy to the U.S. before Trump took office last month.

But Trump on Thursday also called the former aide a "wonderful man" and said he was "treated very, very unfairly by the media."

Trump is interviewing four candidates to replace Flynn at Mar-a-Lago in Florida Sunday after his preferred candidate for the position, retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward turned down the job this week.