once "the washington post" broke the news of how the justice department had issued this warning to the white house, once they broke the news about what flynn was suspected of doing and what the national security emergency was about flynn, once "the washington post" went public with it and flynn therefore finally had to step down, why then did president trump ask james comey, the director of the fbi at the time, to please go easy on flynn. hope you can let this go. why did he do that? it's also been reported that the president additionally asked the national -- the director of national intelligence, dan coats, if he too could please intercede with the fbi to somehow make them go easy on mike flynn, not go after mike flynn. why did the president intercede to do that on flynn's behalf, given what we had all just learned about flynn? why did the president initially say that mike flynn was fired because he had lied to mike pence about his contacts with russia, but then later the president changed his story to say he had to fire flynn because