Rachel Maddow called it last March.
Specifically, Maddow took issue with Vice President Mike Pence recently telling Fox News’ Bret Baier that this was the first time he heard the story that Flynn had to retroactively register as a foreign agent due to his contracts with Turkey that paid him over $500,000 during Trump’s presidential campaign and transition.
As Maddow noted, there is just no way that this was the first time Pence was made aware of Flynn’s dealings with Turkey.
“It is impossible this is the first Mike Pence has heard of it,” Maddow exclaimed. “Mike Pence was the head of the transition, while all of those news stories of Mike Flynn being on the Turkish government’s payroll were breaking.”
Nailed it. The New York Times reports tonight…
Michael T. Flynn told President Trump’s transition team weeks before the inauguration that he was under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey during the campaign, according to two people familiar with the case.
Despite this warning, which came about a month after the Justice Department notified Mr. Flynn of the inquiry, Mr. Trump made Mr. Flynn his national security adviser. The job gave Mr. Flynn access to the president and nearly every secret held by American intelligence agencies.
Mr. Flynn’s disclosure, on Jan. 4, was first made to the transition team’s chief lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, who is now the White House counsel. That conversation, and another one two days later between Mr. Flynn’s lawyer and transition lawyers, shows that the Trump team knew about the investigation of Mr. Flynn far earlier than has been previously reported.
Ay, yi, yi!
So, Mike Pence must have been lying or was painfully out of the loop.
OK, where are we?
Flynn told the Trump Transition Team on January 4 he was being investigated.
They made him National Security Adviser anyway.
Then, they learned that Flynn lied to Pence about communications with the Rooskies after former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned Trump White House Counsel Don McGahn the Rooskies had compromising info on Flynn. That was on January 26. Days later there was a firing. Yates got the axe, not Flynn. Not yet.
The day after Yates warned McGahn about their compromised NSA, January 27, Trump summoned former FBI director James Comey to dinner, demanded his loyalty (Comey demurred), and strongly suggested it might be a good idea if Comey dropped the FBI investigation into Flynn.
THE DAY AFTER BEING WARNED BY YATES THAT FLYNN WAS COMPROMISED!
On January 31, Yates got the gate.
They kept the Yates warning under their pointy white hats until the news leaked out on Feb. 13 and Flynn was let go. If not for the leak, Flynn would probably still be the National Security Adviser.
Now, Comey has been fired for not dropping the investigation, Flynn is looking to cut a deal, the DOJ has appointed a special prosecutor, and we have House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on tape saying in 2016 that Trump was being paid by Putin while, on the same tape, Speaker Paul Ryan tells everyone at the meeting to dummy up about it.
Is Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch measuring the Oval Office drapes yet?