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First 100 Days Briefing

Trump Was Informed 17 Days Ago That Flynn Had Not Been Truthful on Russia

■ Michael T. Flynn’s resignation as national security adviser prompts calls to redouble investigations of Russia contacts.

■ President Trump names Lt. Gen. Joseph Keith Kellogg Jr., a retired Vietnam War veteran, as interim security adviser.

■ The White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, told the news media that Mr. Trump demanded Mr. Flynn’s resignation.

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Michael T. Flynn, center, in December with Donald J. Trump, then the president-elect, and Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff.Credit...Kevin D. Liles for The New York Times

Mr. Spicer said Mr. Trump was informed 17 days ago by Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, that his national security adviser had not been truthful when he told Vice President Mike Pence that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

Mr. Spicer said the president asked Mr. McGahn to then determine whether Mr. Flynn had violated the law. In the end, he said, there was “a violation of trust,” not “a violation of law.”

“It was an evolving and eroding process,” Mr. Spicer said when asked why Mr. Trump’s senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, could say that Mr. Flynn had the president’s full trust on Monday afternoon.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, was the first elected Republican to hit hard on the turmoil in Mr. Trump’s White House, and the continuing questions about Russian influence.

“General Flynn’s resignation is a troubling indication of the dysfunction of the current national security apparatus,” said Mr. McCain, who has emerged as one of the few Republican antagonists that Mr. Trump has not silenced.

“General Flynn’s resignation also raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia, including statements by the president suggesting moral equivalence between the United States and Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, threats to our NATO allies and attempted interference in American elections,” he continued.

A day after Facebook posts came to light showing deliberations over North Korea in the public dining hall of the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr. Trump is up in arms about loose national security controls.

Illegal leaks are, of course, a growing concern for Mr. Trump, since they portray him as running a White House that from the outside at least appears to be spinning out of control. For Mr. Trump, however, the imperative is to focus attention on anything but Russia.

As scandal swirled around Mr. Trump’s new White House, Republicans in Congress beyond Mr. McCain were almost silent on the resignation of Mr. Flynn and its implications.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin chose to focus on Mr. Flynn’s decision to mislead Mr. Pence on the contents of his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak.

“You cannot have a national security adviser misleading the vice president and others,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

But Mr. Ryan deflected when asked about calls for congressional inquiries into the episode. “I’m not going to prejudge circumstances surrounding this,” he said. “I think the administration will explain the circumstances that led to this.”

He again praised Mr. Trump, without identifying Mr. Flynn by name. “As soon as this person lost the president’s trust, the president asked for his resignation,” Mr. Ryan said, “and that was the right thing to do.”

In fact, the Justice Department informed the White House a month ago that Mr. Flynn had not been truthful about his conversations with the ambassador.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes of California, a Trump loyalist, released one of the few statements from the Republican side of the aisle, and it offered no criticism:

“Michael Flynn served in the U.S. military for more than three decades. Washington, D.C., can be a rough town for honorable people, and Flynn — who has always been a soldier, not a politician — deserves America’s gratitude and respect for dedicating so much of his life to strengthening our national security. I thank him for his many years of distinguished service.”

Senator Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was no more forthcoming. “Mike Flynn served his country with distinction,” he said in a statement. “The president needs a national security adviser whom he can trust, and I defer to him to decide who best fills that role.”

One exception, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, who threw his not-very-heavy weight behind a bipartisan commission.

Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the military’s Special Operations Command, told a military conference on Tuesday that the upheavals in Washington are rippling through the American military.

“Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil,” he said. “I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war.”

General Thomas insisted Special Operations forces are “staying focused” despite all the controversy in Washington.

Asked about his comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible.”

Have feedback for the White House on Mr. Flynn or really any other matter? No need to hold your tongue.

Almost two months after the Obama administration temporarily closed it, Mr. Trump’s staff resuscitated the White House comment line on Monday, and volunteers will now take comments for the president on a routine basis.

The line’s closing, during a time of drastic change in the government, spawned consternation among those already wary about the new administration and its commitment to public accountability. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a spokeswoman for the White House, said the closing had been merely a matter of staffing the office that maintains the line.

Give it a call at 202-456-1111.

Although the White House was warned a month ago that Mr. Flynn had been untruthful about the nature of his contacts with Moscow, he was allowed into security briefings as recently as Monday, Ms. Conway said on the “Today” show on Tuesday.

The Justice Department had warned the White House weeks ago that Mr. Flynn’s dissembling put him at risk of blackmail from Russian intelligence, but he was kept by the president’s side.

“That’s one characterization,” Ms. Conway said when confronted with those circumstances.

Mr. Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States are not in question, nor is his trip to Moscow to celebrate the Russian propaganda network RT — sitting next to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — but Moscow said on Tuesday that his resignation was a domestic matter unconnected to the Kremlin.

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