Poorly worded. Flynn lied to Pence. That is precisely why Flynn had to leave. It had nothing to do with the Russians. For it to appear that the NSC Chair outranks the VP and can lie to the VP and get away with it would destroy any presidency.
There are times one admin official will want to give plausible deniability to another official. There are ways to communicate that so that the official in the dark artfully dodges a question. But in this case that was not done. Flynn broke a major rule of any bureaucracy.
In our work in IT we report bugs and security vulnerabilities in the software to the team lead. The team lead who wants to survive and move up the ladder knows how to give those above him plausible deniability. When I was in Vietnam I was in a bastard unit. Bastard units exist in the military precisely to give plausible deniability to the higher ranking officers.
Flynn should know this. He was fired by Obama, not for disagreement on issues, but for incompetence. That was pointed out to Trump by Republicans loyal to Trump when Trump was trying to figure out who would sit in which chair (SOS, DOD, NSC, etc).
You nailed it. Great post.
Here is the BUT from the NYT. The conversation was "ambiguous" enough where Trump could either have kept or fired Flynn:
But the conversation, according to officials who saw the transcript of the wiretap, also included a discussion about sanctions imposed on Russia after intelligence agencies determined that President Vladimir V. Putin’s government tried to interfere with the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Still, current and former administration officials familiar with the call said the transcript was ambiguous enough that Mr. Trump could have justified either firing or retaining Mr. Flynn.
Also, there was NO classified information discussed on the call. It said he "appeared to be reassuring" the ambassador that Trump would adopt a softer tone and asked them not to retaliate for the sake of better cooperation, but they said there was no "explicit" promise of sanction relief but rather an "impression".
Officials said classified information did not appear to have been discussed during the conversation between Mr. Flynn and the ambassador, which would have been a crime. The call was captured on a routine wiretap of diplomats’ calls, the officials said.
But current Trump administration officials and former Obama administration officials said that Mr. Flynn did appear to be reassuring the ambassador that Mr. Trump would adopt a more accommodating tone on Russia once in office.
Former and current administration officials said that Mr. Flynn urged Russia not to retaliate against any sanctions because an overreaction would make any future cooperation more complicated. He never explicitly promised sanctions relief, one former official said, but he appeared to leave the impression that it would be possible.
My question, I suppose was how long was the call? How much of the call was dedicated to Flynn discussing these sanctions without "explicitly" promising relief and "appearing" to reassure the ambassador and "appearing" to leave the "impression" he would lift sanctions? If that was a brief part of the call, I could see why he would have either characterized it in his mind as no big deal and told Pence as such.
The Washington Post's original article written days before the new NYT article said:
All of those officials said Flynn’s references to the election-related sanctions were explicit. Two of those officials went further, saying that Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to the penalties being imposed by President Barack Obama, making clear that the two sides would be in position to review the matter after Trump was sworn in as president.
“Kislyak was left with the impression that the sanctions would be revisited at a later time,” said a former official.
Again, they use the word "impression." They use the word "explicit," but the NYT article doesn't. Even though they say "explicit," they still don't say he "explicitly" promised to life the sanctions but rather said the matter would be "reviewed" and "revisited" when Trump got in. If that was all he said, I could see how he felt he wasn't lying to Pence.
The WSJ is even less damning to General Flynn. Here is the relevant paragraph linked to Twitter because I don't belong to the WSJ:
U.S. intelligence officials routinely intercept and monitor conversations with Russian diplomats, officials have said. The transcripts of the conversations don't show Mr. Flynn made any sort of promise to lift the sanctions once Trump took office, the officials said. Rather, they show Mr. Flynn making more general statements about the relations between the two countries improving under Mr. Trump, people familiar with them said.
https://twitter.com/shaneriderMA/status/831369320034926594
He never promised to lift the sanctions!
You nailed it right on the head with crystal clarity.
Bump.
His tweets are troubling. Using the word scapegoat ...he should keep his mouth shut. I am waiting for the claim he was told what to say.
bttt