vice president, myself in fact, i think the first time i brought this up was january 13. the department of justice didn t notify the white house or the white house counsel at that time in the transition phase until 13 days later. i think it s important to understand something very, very important. this idea of why did it take so long, i think the first question should be where was the department of justice in this? they were aware of this. we were making statements based on what general flynn was telling us starting on january 13th. the vice president went out on the 15th, right? they didn t notify the white house counsel s office until january 26th. at that time there was an immediate the president was immediately informed of that, and asked the white house counsel to conduct a thorough review. the first part of that review was focused on whether or not there was any legal issue. that s it. it shifted into phase two, which is whether or not there was trust still maintained.
he asked specifically was he aware of a washington post story? he hadn t seen that at the time. of course, he was involved. i said he was aware of the situation right after the white house counsel informed him back in january. this is about the legal at involved not the propriety of the conversations between general flynn and the russian ambassador. what are the merits of that conversation before the trump administration had been inaugurated? just to be clear, the acting attorney general informed the white house counsel that they wanted to give a heads up to us on some comments that may have seen conflict with what he had sent the vice president out in particular. the white house counsel informed the president immediately. the president asked him to conduct a review of whether there was a legal situation there. that was what the president believed at the time from what he had been told, and he was proved to be correct. the issue pure and simple came down to a matter of trust, and
campaign earlier now than the look, wolf, that s the definition of treason. this is a very, very serious affair. we all have to understand what s going on with michael flynn, but we can t let this little skanlds or perhaps a big scandal at the moment let us lose sight of the much bigger scandal, which is what is the overall connection between russia and the trump administration. let me be precise on this. you re throwing out a huge word, treason. explain exactly what your concern is. the definition of treason is putting the interests of our enemy ahead of our own. that s what the definition is. it seems like there s a lot of evidence that there are members of the administration who are more concerned about russia s goals than our own. they continually prioritize the desires of the kremlin, like, for example, rescinding the sanctions that have been so importantly put in place, and it s just the voice of the administration that s doing it. you hear both democrats and republicans on
reviewing the situation when it came to michael flynn, and then later on there was a story in the post that the justice department informed the white house a month ago that there was this conversation that occurred that dealt with sanctions and the fact that michael flynn did not tell the vice president this before he went on national television and vouched for the national security advisor that that potentially could be used as blackmail to compromise the national security advisor. the question is, wolf, if the white house was told a month ago about all of this, what did they do with that information? i think one name that s going to come up at this briefing, wolf, if the questions are allowed to be asked by folks in this front row and the front couple of rows, were among several reporters in this room are going to ask this question is did the white house chief of staff not the chief of staff, but the white house counsellor don mcgan inform the chief of staff reince
of the federal reserve, and i look forward to that now that i m in office. thank you. it s a pleasure to be here on my first day. thanks. thank you. all right. let s get back to the fun. we ve been reviewing, and i want to address the events much last night first and foremost. we ve been reviewing and evaluating this issue with respect to general flynn on a daily basis for a few weeks trying to ascertain the truth. we got to a point not based on a legal issue, but based on a trust issue with a level of trust between the president and general flynn had eroded to the point where he felt he had to make a change. the president was very concerned that general flynn had misled the vice president and others. he was also concerned in light of sensitive subjects democratic with by that position of national security advisors like china, north korea, and the middle east, that the president must have complete and unwavering trust for the person in that position. the evolve and eroding level of