Trump: "I Had to Fire Flynn Because He Lied to VP & FBI"; Source: Kushner Directed Flynn to Contact Russian Ambassador; Russia Responds to Flynn Guilty Plea; General Mark Hertling on What's to Blame for Flynn Downfall
ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Glad you're with us. I'm Ana Cabrera, in New York. Breaking news on CNN, an enormous revelation from President Trump that really changes the conversation about who knew what in the first weeks of this presidency. President Trump now saying in a tweet he knew Michael Flynn lied to the FBI, and that is partly the reason he fired him as national security adviser. Now this is huge. Because, as you know, Flynn pleaded guilty just yesterday to the federal crime of lying to the FBI. If the president's words are true, and he knew about this crime, the felony back in February, and it would mean that he knew this when he asked Comey, the former FBI director, to drop the investigation into Flynn. Here is the president's tweet in full. "I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice president and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide." These are the first public comments from the president since the plea in court yesterday. The president's shocking words are suddenly overshadowing his victory lap he's been taking around New York City following the passage of his tax plan. Boris Sanchez is in New York. Boris, President Trump always said he fired Flynn for lying to the vice president, but he never said he knew Flynn lied to the FBI. Any more from the administration?</s>BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not yet, but it certainly is a revelation, as you put it. And it is somewhat unexpected considering that yesterday the president was mostly quiet on the news that Michael Flynn not only admitted to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russians, but also the fact that he is apparently now cooperating with Robert Mueller's special probe and investigation. The president was stopped by reporters at the White House and said there was no collusion and he is not worried about how this news are Michael Flynn cooperating with the special counsel to potentially affect the White House. We heard that echoed by sources at the White House yesterday. But then this afternoon here in New York at a lunch fundraiser he made no mention of Michael Flynn. That tweet was the only thing we heard from the president since he left Washington this morning. Now, he's expected to be back in Washington today. There are two closed events here in New York. The press doesn't have access to the president to ask the question, but he will be asked almost certainly again when he returns to the White House later. Look, it is certainly surprising, especially when you consider the way the White House tried to distance itself yesterday from Michael Flynn, at one point describing him as an Obama era official he's making the claim the president authorized his conversations with Russians. Let's not forget it was widely reported at the time of his firing that President Obama apparently warned Donald Trump about firing him and certainly after the inauguration then acting attorney general, Sally Yates, approached the White House with concerns that Michael Flynn could potentially be blackmailed by Russians. It certainly should not be a surprise that Michael Flynn is moving in this direction. They had apparently been warned previously about his potential links to Russians.</s>CABRERA: It begs the question how literal do you take that tweet? Because a lot of people are saying this is proof of obstruction of justice. California Democrat Ted Lieu writing this, tweeting, "This is obstruction of justice. POTUS now admits he knew Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. Yet, Trump tried to influence or stop the FBI investigation on Flynn." So how are other lawmakers reacting to this? What else are you hearing?</s>SANCHEZ: As you can imagine, there have been several local critics of the president throughout this investigation that are now weighing in. The one of them, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, was on CNN yesterday and made the claim that the president has been less than forthcoming throughout this entire process. He tweeted just a little over a half hour ago writing, quote -- in response to the president's tweet, quote, "If that is true, Mr. President, why did you wait so long to fire Flynn. Why did you fail to act until his lies were publicly exposed and pressure Comey to let this go?" Plenty of questions to be answered. Also by Robert Mueller's special investigation as well. One last thing I wanted to point out. Earlier, I mentioned that Sally Yates approached the White House with concerns. We should note that it took several days for the administration to eventually fire Flynn. They did not respond to the accusations immediately -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: All right. Boris Sanchez, in New York, thank you. Let's head to Washington now and CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, take us back to February when the president fired Michael Flynn. What was he saying then?</s>KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Back in February, the president fired Flynn. It was only after a "Washington Post" story revealed publicly that Flynn had had conversations and discussed the sanctions policy by the Obama administration during the transition with the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It was after that was revealed that President Trump fired Flynn. Here's what he told "People" back in February.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did you direct Mike Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador?</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No I didn't. But Mike - Excuse me. I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence. Very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries. And his counterparts. So it certainly would have been OK with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn't doing it. I didn't direct him. But I would have directed him because that's his job. It came out that way. And in all fairness, I watched Dr. Charles Krauthammer the other night saying he was doing his job. And I agreed with him. And since then, I've watched many other people say that. I didn't direct him, but I would have if he didn't do it. OK?</s>SCANNELL: That's a very interesting distinction, because the president is distancing himself from Flynn's lies, but the underlying conduct and having conversations with foreign governments during the transition is something that could potentially violate the Logan Act, a 218-year-old law that has rarely been used and not successfully prosecuted by the underlying theme in these allegations that Flynn pled guilty to lying about. So the question becomes what -- why was he lying. And in the documents filed as part of his plea, he does acknowledge he did this at the direction of a senior transition official, which CNN has learned is Jared Kushner. Another conversation he had involved another transition official, and others while down at Mar-a-Lago in late December 2016. In that call, Flynn said he discussed with K.T. McFarland, who was then going to be the national security adviser, how to handle sanctions with Russia as this was happening at the time, and she was there. According to the plea agreement, had discussed it with other members of the transition team. So it's -- with Flynn now cooperating, this is really just the tip of the iceberg for Mueller's investigators as they kind of dig into more of who directed these calls, and what else we don't even know about. These are just ones that were revealed in the plea agreement.</s>CABRERA: There's so much more to uncover here. Kara Scannell, thank you. I want to bring in the panel to discuss all of this. Joining me, CNN.com opinion contributor, David Andelman. He is a visiting scholar at the Fordham Law School on Federal and National Security. Also with us congressional reporter for "The Washington Examiner," Laura Barron- Lopez. And the former counsel to the U.S. assistant attorney general for nation security, Carrie Cordero. So, everyone, I want to show you this timeline. On January 24, Flynn had an interview with the FBI. We now know he lied about his call with the Russian ambassador. Three days later, President Trump invited James Comey to dinner. He asked him to pledge his loyalty. Now fast-forward a couple weeks. On February 13, after the public learns Flynn discussed Russian sanctions, President Trump fires Flynn. And one day later, Trump asks Comey to let the investigation into Flynn go. David Andelman, if Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey for loyalty and when he asked him to drop the investigation, is that obstruction of justice?</s>DAVID ANDELMAN, CNN.COM OPINION CONTRIBUTOR: Well, look I'm no lawyer although I'm affiliated with the law school. It strikes me there certainly is a lot of legal questions he's going to have to answer and that the administration is going to have to answer at some point when it finally gets to that point. What I think is interesting is how people abroad--I've been looking around the world. Media, talking to people this morning in a number of countries on how they're viewing this, and they see this in an extraordinary change in the American legal system potentially and a sense of how do they deal with a situation like this, where a country with a full democratic legal system finds one of its top people perhaps all the way up to the press of the United States involved in something so legally questionable.</s>CABRERA: So you're saying people around the world are paying attention to what's happening in the Russian investigation.</s>ANDELMAN: Oh, there's no doubt about it. It seems already to be emboldening the American's enemies abroad. Weakening the will of our allies. It' it's very interesting. The president of France had lunch today with Obama at the palace. The Presidential Honor Guard in France welcoming him. It was very low-key in terms of its being publicized but they had this tet-a-tet. And people are trying to find a way into understand how to deal with the administration that it's clearly seriously damage and more every single day.</s>CABRERA: Carrie, back to the president's tweet, the president's own words. And the impact, do you think President Trump just admitted to obstruction of justice?</s>CARRIE CORDERO, FORMER COUNSEL TO THE U.S. ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR NATION SECURITY: Well there's two different ways to look at the tweet. One way is that it is accurate, in which case it certainly provides another piece of information that would be relevant to the long-standing trail of obstruction that the president arguably has engaged in. So there have been many things he's done since last January that all could culminate in a potential case of obstruction for his efforts to thwart the Russia investigation. But, there is a significant other possibility that what he tweeted today is not true. It is contrary to the information that was released and things that he said early last winter, and unfortunately, the president has a long record established and been reported z on by many news organizations including CNN that he says or tweets things that are false. So on one hand, if it's true, then yes. It is another example of an effort that he took, if he had knowledge that Flynn had lied and then if he tried to stop that investigation, that would be part of a potential obstruction charge. But I think we need to weight a little bit to see if it turns out that what he tweeted out today actually is an accurate representation of what he knew at the time.</s>CABRERA: I thought about this with this tweet, like did he make a mistake in how he wrote it? But my question to you, Carrie, in follow-up is what he said wasn't true, what benefit would he have in tweeting it out?</s>CORDERO: Well, it would not be any legal benefit. Any of his tweets do not have any legal benefit to him or anyone associated with him. From a political standpoint, one might argue that this is another avenue that he took to separate himself from Mike Flynn, to distance himself, to explain why he fired him. But from certainly from any legal or counsel standpoint, any of his advisers, it's hard to see how there's any benefit to him, other than perhaps putting a little more distance between him and Mike Flynn through his tweet today.</s>CABRERA: Laura, the back half of that tweet, the president seems to think it's a good thing Flynn was only charged with lying to the FBI. This is the bigger question. Why would Flynn lie in the first place?</s>LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Well, sure. I mean we, you know, during this investigation, we have seen Mueller slowly by surely building this case, looking at where all of the points lead, to weather not Trump's campaign colluded with Russia and Flynn seems to be the focal point. If there is an obstruction case, he is where it's going to branch out from. All lines lead back to him and stem from him. With Trump's tweet e again, we know he is trying to distance himself, but Trump also likes to say what people want to hear. This is something that we know about the president. The he does this when he's negotiating with leaders in Congress. And so it isn't that surprising that he would want to weigh in beyond what he did earlier.</s>CABRERA: David, just a reminder that we learned Flynn was lying because apparently his conversation with Ambassador Kislyak was picked up in some surveillance. Shouldn't he have known these calls would be recorded? Why lie?</s>ANDELMAN: There's no doubt he should have known that. He was a very senior American general is connected with the national security agency and so on. He knows how the American security operations work. Many of us who have anything to do with the security operations understand these kinds of conversations can easily be picked up and monitored and transcribed. He should certainly have understood that. It seems to me there has to be some other motivation here behind that. By the way, I'd like to talk about the tweets for one moment if I could. Trump's tweets have actually had legal ramifications. His tweets about immigration and so on have actually figured very prominently in the decisions regarding the immigrant ban, Muslim ban. So I think we can't look at things in an isolated situation. The and Trump not being a lawyer himself really seems to have very little understanding of the impact they can have on situations where he and his followers, potentially his son-in-law, could get involved. These are not by any means innocuous. We don't forget about them. Legal system doesn't forget about them. And the world doesn't forget about them.</s>CABRERA: Permanent record now. Carrie, Flynn is cooperating. He says I am cooperating. What are the chances Mueller already knows whether Flynn told President Trump that he lied to the FBI? Is that being one question, and bigger picture, what are the chances Mueller knows exactly what Flynn's going to give him in terms of additional information that could be valuable in his investigation?</s>CORDERO: Well, we don't know from are the plea documents and from the information that was released by the special counsel's office, whether -- we don't know exactly what Michael Flynn has now informed the special counsel's office. What we do know is my interpretation of his plea agreement, because he was charged with just one count of making false statements, which would carry a very low criminal penalty, when in fact he had apparently, based on all the information we know, publicly very large criminal exposure rage ranging from multiple false statements, misrepresentation to potentially other activities he may have been involved in. Based on the one count versus the larger arena of activities that he potentially is able to be charged with, it seems like he probably has either already given the special counsel's office a good deal of information about what he is knowledgeable about, what conversations he knows about, what more information about the extent of communications or cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials or surrogates. And of course, then his plea agreement also provides that if the special counsel's office is to learn more information for example, they could come back to him and have him continue to cooperate. His plea agreement is contingent upon his continued cooperation, and providing information to the special counsel's office.</s>CABRERA: Another piece of this puzzle, of course, is Jared Kushner's role. CNN learning that the president's son-in-law is the very senior member of the transition team that directed Flynn to contact the Russian ambassador about a U.N. vote. We need to get in a quick break. But when I come back, I want to get all of your insights into whether the president could have been trying to protect Kushner in all of this. Stay with me. We'll be right back.