realized with shock, realized he d been lied to by mike flynn when the washington post reported on february 9th that flynn had in fact talked to russia about sanctions. if that news was literally news to president trump and vice president pence and the white house and if that news was shocking and a clear firing offense for mike flynn, then why did they wait another four days to fire mike flynn? they didn t fire him on february 9th. they fired him four days later, on february 13th. but here s the part that has fallen apart in an even more damning manner. since mike flynn pled guilty to lying to the fbi about his conversations with russia, we have since learned that those conversations he had with russia, those were not exactly a personal secret that he was only whisper about to his diary. mike flynn had phone and e-mail conversations with trump transition officials about those calls while they were happening. we know that an e-mail discussing his talks with russia about sanctions was
because in the media accounts it was clear from the republican and oth vice president and others that they were repeating what general flynn had told them and that this was a problem, because not only did we believe the russians knew this but that they likely had proof of this information. that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. the following day in a private one-on-one dinner, president trump appears to ask fbi director james comey for his locality. on january 30th, president trump fires sally yates for not defending his travel ban. on february 13th, flynn resigns. on february 14th, in another oval office meeting, trump tells comey, i hope 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. comey was asked about this during his testimony before the senate intelligence committee. this is the president speaking.
tweet this out. and those tweets might actually become more of a problem than help. michael. if i could just add one thing. the time line that was put forth of february 13th, february 14th i think is exactly right. i would add to that something which i ve been thinking about for a while, which is the firing of sally yates. it was said that sally yates was fired for failure to enforce the immigration ban. i thought for a long time whether that was actually not the real reason she was fired. [ unintelligible ] so sorry, michael, we re losing your audio there, but i think we got part of what you were saying. you believe sally yate s firing came more so because of the way she had warned the white house about michael flynn, less so
it doesn t to me make any sense. has the president created a new problem for himself with this tweet? yes, i think he s created a problem with a lot of questions. we re now going to be focusing i think a lot on what happened february 13th and february 14th earlier this year. on february 13th, michael flynn resigns. presumably now because of this tweet. because president trump knew that flynn had lied both to mike pence and the fbi. so on february 13th apparently donald trump knew that michael flynn had lied to the fbi. the next day on february 14th, trump meets with james comey, the head of the fbi, and says, according to comey, lay off flynn. let this go. let this investigation go. and then, as we know, in may, donald trump fires james comey. there s a time line here now that robert mueller, you know, i think probably, you know, he
travel ban. that was the reason they gave. however it was four days after she warned the white house about flynn. seems like a short amount of time to get worked up about the travel ban. on february 13th, flynn resigned. so there s a question about all the things he did between the yates warning on january 26th and his resignation on the 13th. i think, among other things, he sat in on calls with vladimir putin. he was aware of special operations. obviously, anything the military was doing that the president was briefed on. he would have been aware any of classified secret national security information that the president was in possession of. and then on february 14th, in an oval office meeting, trump told comey, he s a good guy and has been through a lot. i hope you can see your way clear to letting it go. can you speak to this timeline in the context of today s guilty plea from mike flynn and how it