Image copyright Getty Images The Michael Flynn controversy went from zero to resignation in the blink of an eye. On Friday night, Donald Trump was asked about his national security advisor’s pre-inauguration contact with a Russian ambassador and said he’d “look into” it. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “I haven’t seen it.” On Monday senior Trump advise Kellyanne Conway assured reporters that Mr Flynn had the president’s “full confidence” Hours later, Flynn was gone and Conway was left explaining how the situation had become “unsustainable”. Although this may be the end of Mr Flynn’s tenure in the White House, it’s just the beginning of the story. There are a number of questions that aren’t going away just because Mr Flynn has. Who knew what when? According to the Washington Post, acting FBI Director Sally Yates had informed Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn shortly after inauguration day that surveillance of Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak revealed he and Mr Flynn had discussed US sanctions imposed by the Obama administration during their 30 December phone call. This ran directly counter not only to Mr Flynn’s public denials, but those of other Trump administration officials, including press secretary Sean Spicer and Vice-President Mike Pence. So, if the Trump White House knew that Mr Flynn had lied – or, as he put it in his resignation letter, had “inadvertently briefed the vice-president-elect and others with incomplete information – why did it take weeks, and multiple embarrassing media reports, for the national security…more detail
