White House lawyers reportedly wrote a memo on all the falsehoods the administration told about the Michael Flynn firing

Michael Flynn.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In February 2017, White House lawyers expressed concern over the Trump administration's handling of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's resignation, a new report from The New York Times details.

After Flynn resigned following a publicized investigation into his contacts with Russians and secret foreign lobbying efforts, White House lawyers met with then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer to go over what he should say at the podium, since the matter was "a sensitive national security investigation." But they became concerned that Spicer's statements were inaccurate, particularly when it came to describing just how thoroughly the administration had investigated Flynn before determining that there were "no legal issues surrounding" his conduct. The White House attorneys reportedly included Spicer's exaggeration of Flynn's investigation in a memo that listed several misstatements.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.