From the start, Michael Flynn, a retired army lieutenant general, was a
disturbing choice as President Trump’s national security adviser. He is a
hothead with extremist views in a critical job that is supposed to build
consensus through thoughtful, prudent decision-making. The choice is now growing
more unnerving every day.
A conspiracy theorist who has stoked dangerous
fears about Islam, Mr. Flynn was fired by the Obama administration as head of
the Defense Intelligence Agency and led anti-Hillary Clinton chants of “lock her
up” at the 2016 Republican Convention. He raised eyebrows by cultivating a
mystifyingly cozy relationship with Russia, which the Pentagon considers a major
threat.
Now we have learned that in the weeks before the inauguration,
Mr. Flynn discussed American sanctions on Russia, and areas of possible
cooperation, with Moscow’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. They spoke
a day before President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for hacking the
Democrats’ computers, probably in an effort to sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor.
Mr. Flynn’s underhanded, possibly illegal message was that the
Obama administration was Russia’s adversary, and that would change under Mr.
Trump and that any sanctions could be undone. The result seems to be that Russia decided not to retaliate with its own sanctions.
We know this not from
Mr. Flynn or the administration, but from accounts first provided to the
Washington Post by nine current and former government officials who had access
to reports from American intelligence and law enforcement agencies that
routinely monitor the communications of Russian diplomats. Bizarrely, Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday afternoon that he was unaware of the Post report, but
would “look into that. ”.