WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is "evaluating the situation" regarding his national security adviser Michael Flynn's conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., the White House said Monday.
Flynn apologized privately for the controversy to Vice President Mike Pence, according to a White House official. Pence, relying on information from Flynn, publicly vouched that the retired Army lieutenant general did not discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia in calls with the Russia late last year. Flynn has since told the White House that sanctions may have come up.
Trump, who comments on a steady stream of issues on his Twitter feed, has been silent about the matter since The Washington Post reported last week that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy. A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day President Barack Obama's administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking as well as at other times during the transition.
Earlier Monday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump had "full confidence" in Flynn, though her assertions were not backed up by other senior Trump aides.
Flynn sat in the front row of Trump's news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier Monday. But the president did not receive a question about Flynn's future from a pair of reporters, and he ignored journalists' shouted follow-up inquiries as he left the room.
Trump has told associates he is troubled by the situation, but he has not said whether he plans to ask Flynn to step down, according to a person who spoke with him recently. Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he is viewed skeptically by some in the administration's national security circles, in part because of his ties to Russia.
In 2015, Flynn was paid to attend a gala dinner for Russia Today, a Kremlin-backed television station, and sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the event.
Flynn spoke with the vice president about the matter twice Friday, according to an administration official. The official said Pence was relying on information from Flynn when he went on television and denied that sanctions were discussed with Kislyak.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said that if Pence were misled, "I can't imagine he would have trust in Gen. Flynn going forward." She said it would also be "troubling" if Pence had been negotiating with a foreign government before taking office.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi called for Flynn to be fired, saying he "cannot be trusted to put Putin before America."
It's illegal for private citizens to conduct U.S. diplomacy.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.