taken his attacks on the mueller investigation to a new level that may cross the line into obstruction of justice and witness tampering. and it could hit the trump white house where it hurts. at the intersection of mueller s obstruction and collusion cases. on the heels of michael cohen s guilty plea, which revealed a devastating trove of evidence in mueller s possession already, flynn s cooperation may reveal the answers to some of the questions that have been central to the russia investigation since it started. including several questions mueller crafted for trump to answer after flynn started cooperating with the probe. questions for the president like what did you know about phone calls that flynn made with the russian ambassador, sergey kisly kislyak, in late december 2016? the ones flynn lied about to the fbi. how was the decision made to fire michael flynn? and this one, what efforts were made to reach out to flynn about seeking immunity or a possible pardon? we may also finall
russia s intensions and the lengths they went to reach them. on russian state sponsored tv in recent days, sergey kislyak, russia s former ambassador to washington, the man at the center of michael flynn s legal troubles, had some great lapses with his hosts as they mocked the mueller investigation. translator: if it is not difficult, can you list those with whom you met and spoke with on the phone so we know who will soon be going to jail? or at least be summoned for questioning? flynn, sessions, who else? translator: there are two problems here. first, i will never do this. second, the list will be so long that i won t be able to tell you in 20 minutes. reporter: it carries a sting as we get new information from court filings about flynn s urgent back channel calls with kislyak. president obama just ordered sanctions to retaliate for russia s meddling in the elections. after flynn consulted with a top trump aid at mar-a-lago, he
comey to let this go? the white house has a series of questions before them, clearly something that is not likely going to go away anytime soon. specifically now because there is a new new york times report that indicates that several key figures within the trump transition and within the administration were briefed on michael flynn s conversations with sergey kislyak before and after their meeting and so this investigation likely will explore where that goes. and as more information continues to leak out during this investigation, it really hangs a cloud over this white house as they continue moving forward with their legislative agenda. boris sanchez, cnn, in new york. boris, thank you. the white house says journalists are reading too much into the president s tweet on flynn. john dowd, an attorney with mr. trump s private legal team, tells cnn the following, quote, the tweet was a paraphrase of ty cob s statement yesterday, i
sanctions question, flynn made the calls, five calls, sergey kislyak, after he spoke with k.t. mcfarland. k.t. mcfarland was deputy national security adviser. who was katie mcfarland speaking for when she told flynn, look, let s tell the russians we will work with them basically against this sanctions measure. that s an open question. let me add one more thing to you, george, on this. when katie mcfarland went to flynn, she had just written an e-mail that acknowledged that russia had interfered in the u.s. election. so in other words, if all of this is connected up and if all of it is confirmed, the trump team was approaching the russians knowing full well they had interfered in u.s. elections, knowing that barack obama had just imposed sanctions because of that interference, and they were going to work with moscow and assure them that the sanctions might be eased. that s where we are now. so with that, katie mcfarland
called kislyak and asked for russia not to escalate the situation. a source told cnn flynn told kislyak that the trump administration would revisit u.s. sanctions and look favorably on russia if it didn t retaliate. a key question now, what were the trump team s and flynn s motives for reaching out to kislyak. the larger trump team wants a better relationship with russia. i think that for flynn his motivation had to do with what he saw as the main threat against the united states, which is not russians interfering in our election and trying to undermine our democracy, but a world view that sees islam as the real threat and i think that flynn thought he could make some kind of bargain or arrangement with the russians on this. reporter: soon, vladimir putin s surprise response to the overture, no retaliation, at least for now. trump tweets his appreciation. great move on delay by putin. i always knew he was very smart. what was putin s motive for making that deal? one is he wants t