about that and then february 13, flynn resigns following a report that the doj informed the white house that flynn was subject to blackmail. jump forward february 14th, there is an oval office meeting. trump appeals to comey saying i hone you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. he is a good guy. i hope you can let this go according to his testimony. and then finally february 16, president trump holds a whousz n white house news conference and i want pete to play a little bit of that. did you direct mike flynn to discuss sanctions with the russian ambassador? no, i didn t. no, i didn t. and would you have fired him if the information hpt leaked out? i fired him because of what he said to mike pence. very simple. mike was doing his job. he was calling countries and his kou counterparts. so it would have been okay with me if he did it. i would have directed him to do it if i thought he wasn t doing it. i didn t direct him, but i would have because that
investigation inside the white house. frightening thing is this was the national security adviser of the united states and key foreign policy adviser to the president. how many different times did he go to james comey to try to say layoff flynn? this is a huge blow to the president. no other way to put it. don t lie to the fbi or don t talk to them, the two simple lessons that can be inferred. this is clearly not the last shoe to fall. there is at least one other key member of the administration or the transition team who is very knowing ever what mike flynn did and the fact that mike flynn lied about it. the simplicity of this indictment is a signal that there is a lot more to come. well, it is virtually impossible to overstate the importance of this news and it comes as republicans are trying to pass that sweeping tax reform bill in a vote that could start any minute now. i want to dive right in with our large team of reporters and analysts. i want to start with pete
pool spray where you can go in at the top of the meeting, he was meeting with the libyan prime minister. the meeting with the libyan prime minister continued. that did happen. they scrubbed the pool spray even though it was on the schedule, the pool was lined up, ready to go into the oval office. so there would have been a chance had that event taken place. the pool side of the event. to get his response. here s what ty cobb is saying, the president s lawyer. they are basically acknowledging that mike flynn has pled guilty, not a big deal. what they are stud yusly avoiding is perhaps the more important part of what we heard from flin todynn today and that that he is cooperating with bob mueller. today michael flynn and a former obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the fbi. the false statement involved
underlining acts. what i mean, mike flynn was lying to the fbi, one, ease be sanctions put in place by barack obama s administration over russian meddling and goals regarding middle east diplomacy at the u.n. including direct contacts with russia. so if any of those underlying acts were charged, and as we ve reported, not charged today. maybe have been exposure for flynn but we cooperated, reach add dereached a deal. we know flynn was involved now basically admitted to lying about it and sources tell nbc news that kushner was involved. doesn t mean we know where it ends, but it is what investigators look at whether the underlying acts, contacts, were at all part of illegal conduct. anything ranging from a violation of the logan act. private citizens under federal law are not supposed to undermine u.s. policy.