PRESIDENT Donald Trump changed his story on Saturday on why he fired Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.

Trump is now suggesting he knew at the time that Flynn had lied to the FBI as well as to Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russians during the presidential transition. That was a turnabout from his initial explanations that Flynn had to go because he hadn’t been straight with Pence about those contacts.

Lying to the FBI is a crime, and one that Flynn acknowledged Friday in pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

Trump’s tweet: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”

It’s unclear now why Trump would cite lying to the FBI as a reason for firing Flynn.

Doing so suggests the President knew at the time that Flynn had done something that is against the law, and therefore the investigation could not be as frivolous as he’s been portraying.

It’s also unclear how he would know that, if information about Russian contacts had not reached him, as he has been implying in his own defence.

Flynn left the White House in February, only acknowledging that he had given an incomplete account to Pence of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

After Trump forced Flynn out, he asked FBI Director James Comey to end the bureau’s probe in the matter. Comey refused, and Trump fired him, too.

Trump has been publicly dismissive of Comey and of special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing investigation, and was often generous in his appraisal of Flynn, except to say his adviser could not stay on the job after misleading his vice president.

Earlier, Trump insisted there was “absolutely no collusion” between his​ 2016​ campaign and Russia.

“What has been shown is no collusion, no collusion,” Mr Trump told reporters outside of the White House before departing to New York City ​to attend three fundraisers.

“There has been absolutely no collusion.”

Those words were his first direct comment on the news that his ​former national security adviser pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s US ambassador.

media_camera Donald Trump said there was “absolutely no collusion” between his​ 2016​ campaign and Russia. Picture: AP.

As part of his guilty plea, Flynn agreed to co-operate with special counsel Robert Meuller’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s team and Russia.

With New York Post

Originally published as Trump changes story on Russia probe