Kellyanne Conway can't say when president, VP were told Flynn misled them

Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said today that she "did not know" whether the president and vice president were made aware three weeks ago that former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday night, had misled the public and was possibly susceptible to blackmail because of his pre-inauguration conversations with Russia’s U.S. ambassador.

Flynn resigned because his job had become "increasingly unsustainable," Conway said on "Good Morning America" today, attributing the incidents that led to his resignation to forgetfulness or misleading information.

She said that Flynn had a conversation with Pence but that the information he relayed at that time "turned out to not be true."

"I'm not here to say who knew what when," Conway said, after being repeatedly pressed on what the president and vice president knew regarding Flynn's call to the Russian ambassador prior to the inauguration. "I don't know all the details."

Responding to questions about whether Flynn was kept on too long after the White House counsel received a warning from the Justice Department about Flynn's potential vulnerability to Russian blackmail, Conway attributed it to the president's sense of loyalty.

“The fact is the president is a very loyal person and he has a team that serves him very admirably and, in this case, information had been forthcoming for a while but the situation had gotten to a fever pitch yesterday, later in the day,” Conway said.

Regarding Flynn's purported forgetfulness about the call to the ambassador, Conway said that "it’s possible and he could not recall that accelerated matters in a way that was different."

Retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg was named acting national security adviser to replace Flynn, who admitted in his resignation letter that he "inadvertently" gave "incomplete information" about multiple "calls" with the ambassador.

Flynn had previously denied that he spoke about sanctions the U.S. had imposed on Russia for its suspected interference in the 2016 election with the ambassador, an act that may have violated federal law.

Vice President Mike Pence later repeated the denial when asked about the situation in January, but administration officials noted that the vice president was relying on information provided to him by Flynn.

Sources in the administration confirmed that the Justice Department, under the direction of then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, informed the White House in January that Flynn may have misled Pence and other senior officials about his December conversation with the ambassador.

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from ABC News: Politics http://ift.tt/2kFRuFL

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