White House national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned Monday night after admitting he lied about contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, bringing an abrupt end to a brief tenure in his position which will be temporarily filled by Gen. Keith Kellogg, who will be president Trumps interim national security adviser.
In a quite unbelievable twist during an already controversial first few weeks in charge of the White House for President Donald Trump, it has now emerged his National Security Advisor General Flynn may of been open to blackmail from Russians leaving him at a point of being an actual threat to national security of his own homeland.
In a resignation letter Flynn said: “The fast pace of events” during the transition meant that he had “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador.”
Those lies have now gone on to cost Flynn his job, on Monday night, Flynn quit his role amid growing questions about whether he had misled Vice President Mike Pence, and the FBI, about his phone calls with the Russian envoy on December 29th, the day outgoing Obama administration slapped new sanctions on Moscow for its alleged interference in the 2016 presidential elections.
Flynn had denied discussing sanctions in his call with ambassador Kislyak, but US officials had said Flynn explicitly talked about the sanctions and hinted that Trump might be willing to lift them.
This type of discussion could be a violation of the Logan Act, an obscure federal law, which prohibits people outside the executive branch from making foreign policy on behalf of the US administration.
