— President Trump, in a tweet, May 17, 2019
The president tweeted that he did not realize Michael Flynn, his first national security adviser, had been under investigation on suspicion of being a Russian agent and that he should have been warned.
This is a puzzling complaint. First, a report issued by a Republican-led House committee — often touted by Trump — disclosed in 2018 that there had been an ongoing counterintelligence investigation of Flynn. So that’s not new information. Second, Trump was warned by President Barack Obama not to hire Flynn — and the report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III says that warning actually soured Trump on Flynn.
Here’s what we know about the warnings Trump received about Flynn. In a narrow, technical sense, Trump was not warned that Flynn was being investigated as a possible Russian agent. But there were plenty of other flashing lights that Flynn was trouble — warnings that Trump chose to ignore.
View the complete May 20 article by Glenn Kessler on The Washington Post website here.