11 Mar 2017 10:47 am
The transition team which was run by Mike Pence, was made aware that Flynn was lobbying for a foreign government before he was appointed National Security Advisor.Flynn's lawyer told Trump team about Turkish lobbying during transition.
A lawyer for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn contacted an attorney for the Trump transition team about whether Flynn needed to register as a foreign agent before taking the role of national security adviser -- from which he was later forced to resign, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said today.
The comments came after it was revealed that Flynn had done lobbying work in in the months before his appointment that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey," according to documents filed with the Department of Justice.
Trump made a pledge during the campaign to "drain the swamp" of lobbyists and has been dogged by questions about Flynn and both his lobbying work and ties to Russia.
"Just so we're clear, is that a personal lawyer of General Flynn's contacted a transition lawyer and asked for guidance on what he should or should not do," Spicer said today.
"The lawyer was instructed that at -- that that wasn't the role of the transition and that it was up to the personal lawyer to work with the appropriate authorities or subject matter experts to determine what was appropriate and what was not appropriate in terms of filing.
This was a personal matter. It's a business matter."
But Vice President Mike Pence -- the chairman of the transition team -- said that the first time he heard of the lobbying ties was this week and not during the transition.
"Let me say hearing that story today was the first I heard of it and I fully support the decision that President Trump made to ask for General Flynn's resignation," Pence said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday.
Two senior administration officials tell ABC News that the Turkey issue was not one of the aforementioned "series of questionable instances" Spicer said last month led Trump to ask for his resignation.
A source familiar with the situation tells ABC News Flynn informed the White House counsel team both during the transition and after the inauguration that he would have to file as a foreign agent because of the work he did on behalf of the Turkish government.
This source could not say if Flynn first made the team aware of his situation before or after President-Elect Trump announced that he be appointing the former general to be his NSA on Nov. 18th.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent Pence a letter on November 18 requesting more information about the potential conflicts of interest posed by Flynn's lobbying work.
Cummings sent the letter four days after both The Daily Caller and Politico reported that Flynn's consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group Inc., had been hired to lobby for Turkish interests.
Yet Pence said he knew nothing about this until this past Tuesday when it was revealed that Flynn retroactively registered as a foreign agent.
Pence is as big a liar as his boss.