President Trump on Thursday defended his decision to delay the removal of his former national security adviser, Gen. Mike Flynn, for 18 days after a Justice Department official warned him that Flynn had misrepresented his pre-inaugural contacts with the Russian ambassador.
“This man has served for many years, he’s a general, he’s a — in my opinion — a very good person,” Trump told NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview that aired Thursday evening.
Trump dismissed Flynn in early February.
Nearly three weeks prior, then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates had met with Donald McGahn, White House council, to inform him that the Justice Department had evidence to suggest Flynn provided misleading information to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States in the days before Trump’s inauguration.
Flynn told Pence he had not discussed sanctions with the ambassador, and the vice president had repeated Flynn’s representation as fact. But Yates indicated the incoming national security adviser had, in fact, talked about sanctions against Russia in phone conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“Because my White House Council, Don McGahn, came back to me and did not sound like an emergency,” Trump said Thursday. “She actually didn’t make it sound that way either. In the hearings the other day, like it had to be done immediately.”
Yates testified before the Senate this week that she had provided a series of formal warnings to the White House about the risk Flynn’s misrepresentations posed to the administration.
But Trump said his reluctance to remove Flynn in January stemmed in part from the fact that he was unfamiliar with Yates, an Obama administration appointee.
“I believe that it would be very unfair to hear from somebody who we don’t even know and immediately run out and fire a general,” Trump said.
Flynn has been accused of concealing Russian payments from the government.
Trump said Thursday that Flynn’s comments to the vice president factored into his decision to remove him.
