White House reportedly weighing whether to fire Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn
Michael Flynn, President Trump's national security adviser, has been going around the White House apologizing for the drama surrounding his contact with the Russian ambassador to the United States before the inauguration, an administration official told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Flynn had said he and Sergey Kislyak never discussed the sanctions imposed on Russia by former President Barack Obama in response to alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election, and Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials backed him up. The administration official said that Flynn now admits he did speak with the ambassador about sanctions, multiple times, as reflected in transcripts of his phone calls. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is leading the White House's review of the matter, and some insiders are hopeful that Flynn will resign on his own accord.
Trump has told some people in confidence Flynn is no longer welcome in the White House, while others say he has expressed confidence in him, WSJ reports. Legal experts have said if Flynn promised to ease sanctions once Trump was in office, he may have violated a law that bars private citizens from engaging in foreign policy.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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