after donald trump won the election, president obama reportedly warned him not to hire flynn. flynn was, in fact, tapped, however, as national security adviser on november 17. on december 1, flynn and jared kushner met with the russian ambassador who later told moscow that kushner asked about setting up backchannel for communications between the trump team and the kremlin. later that month, flynn spoke with kislyak, the ambassador more than once, including after obama imposed sanctions on russia for election meddling. flynn was sworn in as national security adviser january 22nd of 2017. by that time, news of his conversations about the russian ambassador had emerged, and vice president mike pence had been asking about them. two days after his swearing in, flynn was interviewed by the fbi. january 26, then-acting attorney general sally yates told the white house about flynn lying
that! after donald trump won the election, president obama reportedly warned him not to hire flynn. flynn was in fact tapped, however, as national security adviser on november 17. on december 1 flynn and jared kushner met with the russian ambassador who later told moscow that kushner asked about setting up backchannel for communications between the trump team and the kremlin. later that month, flynn spoke with kislyak, the ambassador more than once, including after obama imposed sanctions on russia for election meddling. flynn was sworn in as national security adviser january 22nd of 2017. by that time, news of his conversations about the russian ambassador had emerged, and vice president mike pence had been asking about them. two days after his swearing in, flynn was interviewed by the fbi. january 26, then acting attorney general sally yates told the white house about flynn lying and potentially being vulnerable to blackmail.
along with judge jeanine pirro s book and gregg jarrett book. the three of them are all worth a great read.t alan dershowitz. good to see you both. let me begin with you, andy mccarthy, on your piece. if the lawyer gives them 30 hours, the white house counsel, the president goes in. remember, george papadopoulos, h lieutenant general flynn lying and the fbi didn t think that flynn was lying. papadopoulos is basically a nonplayer kid in all of this. why would the president think anything but a perjury trap awaits him? i think that that is obviously what the problem is for him here. we have a history of this investigation where one person remembers something one way, somebody else remembers it a different way. the same thing happened with general flynn. first they decide he she telling the truth. then they decide that he s not. 30 hours of conversation about
the he found out about it in the summer. he took him off the case. he should have been more transparent about it and made it public but on balance i don t think this really reflects badly on the entire f.b.i. or on the entire investigation. i have problems with the investigation independent of that. but i think comey ultimately i think mueller did the right thing. bill: a bit of a connection issue here hearing me. i apologize for walking over you that last point there. you are good. i know you re coming on skype. you wrote a piece about why did flynn lie. i m not here to ask you to answer that. the obvious answer is you think you are doing something and you don t tell the truth. the more important point i think you make in the piece is that the fact that he was charged with lying is a sign of weakness on behalf of the special counsel. now, why do you make that point? well, i think when the
special counsel wants to indict somebody and make him into a cooperateor the last thing they want to do is indict him for lying. it makes it clear you can t trust this guy. if he had anything better, he would have indicted him for a conspiracy that involved other people the way nixon, for example, people were indicted and named as an unindicted co-conspirator. if they had anything beyond flynn lying why he lied we don t know. he lied about something that was entirely lawful. it doesn t show strength when you go after your main witness and call him a liar. bill: the president s attorney is the one who drafted the tweet over the weekend saying the president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice because he is the highest lawmaker in the land. you sent a tweet clarifying your position. let me be clear, a president can be charged with obstruction if he commits criminal acts beyond his continually