Former ethics director: Trump’s tweet on Flynn would have ended past administrations

A former government ethics official said Saturday that President Trump’s tweet about the firing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn would have been enough to end past administrations.

“Are you ADMITTING you knew Flynn had lied to to the FBI when you asked Comey to back off Flynn?” Walter Shaub, the former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, tweeted at Trump.

“Before we slipped into an alternate universe of unabashed corruption, this tweet alone might have ended a Presidential administration,” he added.

Tell us, @realDonaldTrump, did you know Flynn had lied to the FBI when Counsel to the President Don McGahn snubbed Yates as she tried to warn the White House Flynn had been compromised?

Did you know Flynn had lied to the FBI when you fired Yates days after her whistleblowing?

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 2, 2017

Before we slipped into an alternate universe of unabashed corruption, this tweet alone might have ended a Presidential administration.

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) December 2, 2017

Shaub was responding to a tweet Trump posted Saturday in which he said he fired Flynn in February because “he lied to the Vice President and the FBI.”

{mosads}

“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies,” Trump tweeted. “It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”

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!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 2, 2017

In February, the White House said Trump asked Flynn to resign from his position because of “eroding trust.”

In his resignation, Flynn apologized for giving an inaccurate assessment of his conversation with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to Vice President Pence.

After the conversation, Pence appeared in a television interview in which he said Flynn had not discussed the issues of sanctions with Kislyak.

In June, former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate that Trump asked him during a Feb. 14 meeting to “let go” of an investigation into Flynn. 

Flynn, who was ousted as Trump’s national security adviser on Feb. 13, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian officials in the month before Trump took office.

He becomes the first person to have worked in Trump’s administration to be charged by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Shaub resigned from his ethics post in July after criticizing Trump over the president’s business interests.