Flynn weighs in on General Flynn’s firing with Margaret Brennan on December 21, 2017. (Credit: CBS News)
“Vice President Mike Pence told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan Thursday that he knew former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had lied to him about his contacts with the Russians when Flynn was fired in February. Brennan spoke with Pence during the vice president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan.
Flynn, who’s now cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian election interference, pled guilty last month to lying to the FBI. He told investigators he’d never discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with a Russian ambassador when those sanctions were imposed by the Obama administration shortly after the 2016 election.
Before Flynn’s claim was publicly revealed as a lie, however, it was repeated by Pence during a January 15 interview with Face the Nation moderator John Dickerson. Pence said he’d spoken with Flynn about his Christmas Day interaction with a Russian envoy. “He had sent a text to the Russian ambassador to express not only Christmas wishes but sympathy for the loss of life in the airplane crash that took place,” Pence said. “It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia.” (Read more: CBS News, 12/21/2017) (Archive)