Michael Flynn's resignation from national security post has the potential to threaten careers all the way to the top
Updated
You can be as controversial, as obnoxious, as irrational as you like. That's not a crime. But negotiating with a foreign government when you are just a civilian with no official authority, well that is against US law.
Either national security adviser Michael Flynn has one of the world's worst memories or he deliberately misled his Vice-President, Mike Pence, and the nation as to the content and subject matter of his calls to the Russian ambassador in Washington.
The Washington Post said the national security adviser had discussed the recently applied sanctions that the then president Obama had slapped on Russia over its alleged hacking of the US election.
The paper said Mr Flynn, who had not yet been appointed to his new job, had advised the Russians not to retaliate against the sanctions.
And they didn't. The underlying message, it is assumed, was once Donald Trump was inaugurated the two countries could sort it all out.
But at the same time unnamed US security officials were leaking, there was deep unease the Kremlin had someone they could trust inside the White House — in effect, their man.
Where does this leave the tweeter in chief Donald Trump? He has remained uncharacteristically quiet about all this.
Is it credible the man he appointed to the most influential security post in the United States then had multiple conversations with the Russians without the President's knowledge or authority?
Did Michael Flynn really run rogue and do clandestine deals with the Kremlin without telling his boss a thing?
Or was a President already publicly wooing Vladimir Putin happy to let his main security man unofficially do deals that may or may not have been on the right side of the law?
At this point, we just don't know. But there are armies of journalists and disgruntled Washington insiders who are working around the clock trying to answer a question that has the potential to threaten the careers all the way to the top.
Topics: world-politics, united-states, russian-federation
First posted
