White House says Trump asked for Flynn's resignation after erosion of 'trust' Trump's aides had earlier said that Flynn’s departure came of his own volition.

President Donald Trump lost trust in his national security adviser, prompting the commander in chief to request Michael Flynn’s resignation, the White House said Tuesday.

Breaking with counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway’s explanation for Flynn’s departure, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump asked Flynn to hand in his resignation after the president’s trust in his adviser was irreparably damaged.


Trump for weeks had known that Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about the contents of his conversation with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition period, according to Spicer, who blamed the Justice Department for the pace of events.

“We’ve been reviewing and evaluating this issue with respect to General Flynn on a daily basis for a few weeks trying to ascertain the truth. We got to a point not based on a legal issue but based on a trust issue where the level of trust between the president and General Flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change,” Spicer told reporters.

“The president must have complete and unwavering trust for the person in that position,” he continued. “The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation in a series of other questionable instances is what led the president to ask for General Flynn’s resignation.”

Spicer, however, refused to elaborate on any of the “other questionable instances.” Rather, he detailed the timeline of events that ultimately led to Flynn’s dismissal and was adamant throughout the daily briefing that Flynn violated Trump’s trust, not any law. He also suggested that the DOJ sat on its information for nearly two weeks, allowing Pence to convey false information in a Jan. 15 TV interview before informing the White House about Flynn’s misstatements on Jan. 26.

“It would be unbelievably shortsighted and wrong to go in and dismiss someone immediately,” Spicer said, explaining the White House's delayed reaction. “In fact, what the president did was take decisive action to make sure that the White House counsel thoroughly reviewed and vetted the situation. He took immediate, decisive action.”

White House counsel Don McGahn briefed Trump and a small group of advisers “immediately after” the DOJ notified McGahn’s office that Flynn potentially misled administration officials and was possibly susceptible to Russian blackmail, Spicer said, noting that the counsel’s office conducted an “extensive review” of the legality of Flynn’s call before Trump “evaluated the truth aspect of it.”

“The issue here was that the president got to the point where General Flynn’s misleading the vice president and others or the possibility that he had forgotten critical details of this important conversation had created a critical mass and an unsustainable situation,” he added. “That’s why the president decided to ask for his resignation, and he got it. The irony of this entire situation is that the president has been incredibly tough on Russia.”

Trump himself had cast Flynn’s resignation as a distraction, tweeting Tuesday morning that the “real story” is the amount of leaks about his administration.

His attempt to change the subject came as reports have mushroomed of a West Wing in chaos. The president has careened from one crisis to another during the first few weeks of his administration, as he’s churned out controversial executive orders, battled with foreign leaders and sought to fight back against accounts of vicious infighting among his aides.

In the most recent crisis, Trump accepted Flynn’s resignation Monday evening after the retired lieutenant general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency misled Pence and other administration officials on the details of his conversation with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Flynn had reportedly discussed with the emissary a reprieve of sanctions the Obama administration imposed on the Kremlin in December for conducting cyberattacks during the presidential election, potentially breaking the law, as he was at the time a private citizen.

Flynn acknowledged communicating with the ambassador but denied that sanctions were discussed, and Pence defended him on a Sunday public affairs show based off their conversation.

In an interview with the conservative news outlet Daily Caller conducted on Monday and published on Tuesday, Flynn maintained that he crossed “no lines.” “If I did, believe me, the FBI would be down my throat. My clearances would be pulled. There were no lines crossed,” he said.

Flynn admitted to discussing the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats — which was one component of the Obama administration's sanctions — but argued that “it wasn’t about sanctions.”

“It was about the 35 guys who were thrown out,” Flynn said. “So that’s what it turned out to be. It was basically: ‘Look, I know this happened. We’ll review everything.’ I never said anything such as, ‘We’re going to review sanctions,’ or anything like that.”

The Washington Post reported Monday that Trump administration officials were briefed by a top Justice Department official last month on Flynn’s misstatements, and the embattled adviser resigned soon after. But Trump signaled that the Flynn narrative is merely a diversion.

“The real story here is why are there so many illegal leaks coming out of Washington?” he tweeted, in what appeared to be a subtle jab at the intelligence community. “Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?”

Trump has struggled to contain leaks during his weeks-old administration. Reporters have unearthed extraordinary details from inside the White House, including the contentious calls with foreign leaders and the president’s displeasure with a woman lampooning his press secretary on “Saturday Night Live.”

He also blamed the intelligence community last month for allegedly leaking information about an unsubstantiated Russian dossier containing compromising and salacious information about him, which BuzzFeed had published in full.

A White House aide told POLITICO last week that the administration has launched an investigation into leaks coming out of Washington.

In another blow delivered to Trump's White House on Tuesday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz has given White House chief of staff Reince Priebus two weeks to respond to questions about the administration's security practices following reports Monday that sensitive information was discussed while among Mar-a-Lago members.

Other lawmakers also appeared to add to Trump's headaches.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters it’s “highly likely” that the chamber’s Intelligence Committee will investigate whether Flynn talked about sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham speculated that perhaps Flynn “went rogue,” expressing skepticism that Flynn would talk sanctions with the Russian ambassador unbeknownst to the White House. He added that Americans have the right to know whether he spoke for the Trump administration or the call was a “rogue maneuver.”

“Now I may be wrong,” he told CNN. “Maybe he did this in a rogue fashion. Maybe General Flynn went rogue.”

Trump’s tweet Tuesday appeared to echo dialogue from Conway’s interview on “Fox & Friends.” Conway, a counselor to the president, thanked co-host Steve Doocy for highlighting what he called “troubling” leaks out of Washington about Flynn’s conversations that may have come directly from the intelligence community.

“You may be the only outlet talking about that this morning so thank you for shining a light there,” Conway said. “Look, leaks are always disturbing. I think the president of the United States has made that very clear. And leaks when it has to do with security intelligence information are that much more concerning just hypothetically.”

Trump’s allies conveyed mixed messages concerning the details of Flynn’s resignation, exposing an apparent rift among Trump’s top aides. Spicer, the official spokesman for the administration, said repeatedly that Trump asked for Flynn’s resignation, breaking with Conway’s position that Flynn resigned on his own but aligning somewhat with House Speaker Paul Ryan.

“I think it’s really important that as soon as they realized that they were being misled by their national security adviser, they asked for his resignation,” Ryan said, although Spicer later indicated that the White House spent “weeks” reviewing Flynn’s behavior.

Conway, on the other hand, insisted that Flynn’s departure came of his own volition. She argued that Flynn’s dialogue with the Russian ambassador wasn’t at issue, instead contending that Flynn’s mischaracterization of that discussion to the vice president and others is what became “unsustainable.”

“In this particular case, there was an incident or so that just became unsustainable for him to carry on in that role,” she said. “And that was a decision he made, and the president accepted his resignation and is moving on.”

Conway and Spicer, at the president’s request, both referenced a statement during their TV appearances that Charles Krauthammer made Monday night — which suggests Trump was aware that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Russia.

Krauthammer, who Trump tweeted “has zero” credibility on this day last year, told Fox News’ Bret Baier that the Flynn controversy was a “a cover-up without a crime.” “The idea that one should be all aghast because the incoming national security adviser spoke with the Russian ambassador and spoke about sanctions seems to me to be perfectly reasonable,” he said. “The idea that it was illegal is preposterous.”

On Tuesday, Spicer and Conway were both adamant that Flynn didn't break the law. For her part, Conway said it wasn’t “a particular contact or incident by itself” that led to Flynn’s demise.

“It’s really the cumulative effect of that leading to incomplete or misleading, forgetful information, frankly,” she said. “And completely misleading information, that really was the key here.”

Conway initially said Monday that Flynn had Trump’s “full confidence.” In a separate interview Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the White House aide conceded that she doesn’t “know all the details” but argued that it was “a very fluid situation.”

“General Flynn assured Vice President Pence of something that turned out to not be true, and that’s really the key here,” she said. “I think that General Flynn in the end decided he was a lightning rod. He did not want to be a distraction and he tendered his resignation last night because what he had provided the vice president either was a product of misleading information or forgetfulness, and neither one was sustainable long term.”

Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg will serve as acting national security adviser and head of the National Security Council in the interim as Trump looks for Flynn’s successor.

“The president is currently evaluating a group of very strong candidates that will be considered to fill the national security adviser position permanently and is confident in the ability of General Kellogg, a decorated and distinguished veteran of the United States Army, until that person is ultimately chosen,” Spicer said.

Flynn, however, will likely stay in the headlines for a while. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker told reporters on Tuesday that Flynn may be asked to testify as part of a larger probe into Russia’s alleged election-season hacking.

“I think there needs to be fulsome investigation on all angles relative to nefarious activities that were taking place with Russia, beginning in March but even going back before that time,” Corker said, adding that “an element of that” may be Flynn testifying.