1. The special counsel’s office rejected a suggestion from Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, that he had been tricked into lying to F.B.I. agents investigating Russia’s election interference and ties to Trump associates.

Prosecutors laid out a pattern of lies by Mr. Flynn, above, to Vice President Mike Pence, senior White House aides, federal investigators and the media in the weeks before and after the presidential inauguration as he scrambled to obscure the truth about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. at the time.

Neither Mr. Flynn nor his lawyers have explained why he lied. But in a memo this week asking for little or no prison time, they blamed the F.B.I. for not informing Mr. Flynn ahead of time that lying to agents is illegal.