Donald Trump can't afford to lose grip
Michael Flynn lasted 25 days as President Donald Trump’s national security advisor before resigning last week, making his tenure the shortest in NSA history. His ouster comes as a growing cloud of scandal envelopes the White House over its reported ties to the Kremlin.
The former three-star general leaves after a series of stories were published in the US media outlining his communications with Russia’s ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, and as his story changed as to what those conversations entailed.
Resignation
In his resignation letter, Flynn explained, “Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice-president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologised to the president and the vice- president, and they have accepted my apology.”
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| Michael Flynn lasted 25 days as President Donald Trump’s national security advisor. |
But if Trump thought that Flynn’s departure would close the topic, he was wrong. The US intelligence seems to have collected phone records and intercepted calls showing that people surrounding Trump had been in touch with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. There is a full-on war between Trump and American intelligence establishment.
Flynn became the second top Trump official to resign over linkages to the Kremlin. In August, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort stepped down amid questions over his work for pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs. Rather unhelpfully, Russian lawmakers mounted a fierce defence of Flynn from Moscow.
Flynn is also being investigated by the army, which is looking into whether he received money from the Russian government during a trip he took to Moscow in 2015. Any payment could violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits former military officers from accepting money from a foreign government without an approval from Congress. Last year, Flynn had suggested that he was paid by RT — a Kremlin-funded mouthpiece — to appear at the event, in which he was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It was the Washington Post, which reported that just after Trump’s January 20 inauguration, acting attorney general Sally Q Yates informed the White House that she believed Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with Kislyak. Yates would later be fired by Trump for refusing to carry out his executive order banning travel from seven
Muslim-majority countries. Yates argued to the administration that Flynn’s evasions could make him a blackmail risk.
Sanction
Flynn had initially denied that sanctions came up in his conversations, but later said he couldn’t recall if the subject came up or not. Vice-President Mike Pence was reportedly furious that Flynn had misled him on the issue, causing Pence to defend Flynn on national television in the days before the inauguration.
There has been widespread chaos at the National Security Council (NSC) with many NSC staffers reportedly deciding to go back to their home agencies rather than work for Flynn. The frontrunner to take over the NSC was retired US Navy vice admiral Bob Harward, who served as defence secretary Jim Mattis’ deputy at the US Central Command.
But he turned down Trump’s offer after he was denied the authority to select his own NSC staff. Trump finally selected Gen HR McMaster as his new NDA, whose book, Dereliction of Duty, about the failure of American generals to push back against civilian leaders during the Vietnam War, earned him a reputation as a both a talented academic and a general inclined to speak truth to power.
Administration
Trump, who had claimed to be a great manager during his campaign, is now looking at a leader completely out of depth in his new job. The US intelligence community is so convinced that Trump and his administration has been compromised by Russia that they’re no longer giving the White House all of their most sensitive information, lest it end up in Putin’s hands. After getting Flynn, Trump’s detractors will be hoping to target Trump himself.
During the campaign, Trump publicly called on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails. Since becoming president, his statements on Russia have been all over the place. His UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, condemned Russia and insisted sanctions imposed over the seizure of Crimea are here to stay. But when Trump was asked about Putin being a “killer,” he suggested the US government has no moral standing to criticise him.
That the Flynn scandal erupted at a time when North Korea decided to test the Trump administration by test-firing a nuclear-capable missile into the Sea of Japan further complicates decision-making in Washington. Anticipating North Korean provocations, President Trump had already ordered a national review of policy options for dealing with Pyongyang. But it had now become imperative for Trump to get a grip on governance and policy-making. How he manages these initial few months will, in more ways than one, determine the long-term sustainability of his presidency.
(Courtesy: Mail Today)