Washington D.C.( CBS, Dec 3,2017): President Trump spoke publicly Saturday morning for the first time since his former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBIon Friday, saying he “had to fire” Flynn because he lied to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI.
Flynn misled Pence about his contact with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and later, lied to the FBI about that contact in a Jan. 24 interview, as he pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday. But the president’s tweet Saturday president raises the question of whether he was aware Flynn lied to the FBI before firing him on Feb. 13. Mr. Trump insisted, “There was nothing to hide!”
Former FBI Director James Comey has said that the president asked him to dropthe investigation into Flynn the day after Flynn was ousted, on Feb. 14.
On Saturday, Mr. Trump, asked whether the Flynn guilty plea worried him Saturday morning, emphasized there was “no collusion.”
“What has been shown is no collusion, no collusion,” Mr. Trump said, responding to a reporter’s question about whether the Flynn plea worries him before pivoting to a major tax bill the Senate passed just before 2 a.m. Saturday. “There’s been absolutely no collusion, so we’re very happy. And frankly last night was one of the big nights.”
“We’ll see what happens,” added the president, who is on his way to New York for a series of fundraisers.
On Saturday night, Mr. Trump followed up with another tweet on Flynn, writing “so General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday ‘interrogation’ with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times…and nothing happens to her?”