It doesn’t look good for Mike Flynn

After 72 hours of a negative news cycle filled with palace intrigue about whether Flynn is losing the confidence of his colleagues, and more importantly his boss, the former three-star general — who once said he wanted people in the White House who have looked through a rifle scope — is now in the crosshairs himself.

There’s a lot you can get away with in Washington, but lying to the vice president’s face and then letting the vice president use that lie in public is far outside the realm of the acceptable.

Taking a phone call with a top diplomat like Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak to exchange pleasantries and arrange a presidential phone call is one thing. Indeed, as national security adviser, these kinds of discussions are expected. The job of national security adviser is one of the most serious in the entire government, and one of those duties includes preparing the president for conversations with foreign leaders. The conversation with Kislyak, therefore, is not out of the ordinary.

It’s a far more tenuous matter, however, when U.S. economic sanctions on Russia are discussed during the course of that conversation, particularly when you insinuate (as Flynn reportedly did) that Moscow need not worry about the Obama administration’s latest sanctions announcements because President Trump would review all of it anyway.

It’s even worse when you misrepresent the nature of those conversations to the second most powerful man in the executive branch, and then admit that perhaps you weren’t being entirely truthful only once the media gets ahold of the story.

According to CBS, Vice President Mike Pence is irritated Flynn lied to him. Speaking to the Washington Post, an unnamed administration official commented that the White House is increasingly concerned Flynn can’t be trusted. “Flynn is running out of friends, no question,” this official said. “The broad consensus in the White House is that he lied.

Indeed, it’s hard not to conclude that Flynn lied. How else to describe a situation where the reality is a lot worse than the representation, and that the two only sync once the media uncovers the real nature of the call? It may not be lying akin to Watergate, but a small lie is still a lie.

For someone like Flynn who has had such a legendary and storied career as a military intelligence officer, this entire story is an unfortunate chapter in his life. But having three stars pinned on your chest doesn’t absolve you of accountability. It would have been far smarter for Flynn to get out in front of this mini-scandal by approaching Pence and quickly correcting the record.

Instead, it took a Washington-style version of getting caught red-handed before Flynn decided to apologize to Pence and his White House colleagues, something that could be forgiven quickly if Trump critics didn’t now have more ammunition to use in their campaign to undermine the administration.

What happens next with Flynn is hardly assured.

Unlike Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, Flynn was with Trump from the beginning. Flynn’s endorsement provided Trump with critical support from a high-profile member of the national security community at a time when the vast majority of security professionals were shuddering at the thought of Trump being the most powerful person on the planet.

Flynn is loyal to Trump, and Trump is loyal in return. Despite the Washington parlor game of guessing whether Flynn will stay or go, this could just as easily turn out to be a minor dust-up resolved with a Flynn-Pence summit in the Oval Office.

Whatever Trump decides to do, however, he must instill some discipline in his staff. What that discipline would be is anyone’s guess, but the president needs to sign off on some kind of sanction in order to deter anything similar from happening again.

You cannot lie squarely to the vice president’s face and get away with it.

Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a fellow at Defense Priorities. His opinions are his own.

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