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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Officials Repeatedly Pushed Flynn's Bogus Story Of Russia Contacts
By ALLEGRA KIRKLAND and SAM THIELMAN Published DECEMBER 5, 2017 6:00 AM
So many of them knew.
As court filings and emails emerge from the Mueller probe and dogged reporting, Trump officials who denied that Michael Flynn would stoop to renegotiating the outgoing administrations sanctions on Russia turn out to have been privately informed of Flynns pre-inauguration diplomacy in real time.
The Trump camps public posture about Flynns proposal to Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak not to retaliate for Obamas new sanctions has been a rapidly moving target. The conversation didnt take place at all, according to unnamed Trump administration sources in January. Or they did, but the two didnt talk about sanctions. Or they were about sanctions, but only in the context of outreach to foreign dignitaries, as White House lawyer Ty Cobb put it.
It would have been political malpractice not to discuss sanctions, Cobb told the New York Times in a report published Saturday. There is nothing to hide, according to the President on Monday, which doesnt go very far to explain why so many spent so long trying to hide it.
TIMELINE
Jan. 12: A column by the Washington Posts David Ignatius revealed for the first time that Flynn and Kislyak spoke to each other on Dec. 29, the day President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on the Kremlin for interfering in the 2016 election. Though the column did not report what Flynn and Kislyak discussed, Ignatius asked whether Flynns comments could have undercut the U.S. sanctions and if the spirit of the Logan Act was violated.
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