The New York Times political team analyzes the scandal involving the Trump White House and Michael Flynn, who has resigned as National Security Advisor, and explains why the scandal won’t go away with Flynn’s resignation:
[...] on Monday, a former administration official said the Justice Department warned the White House last month that Mr. Flynn had not been fully forthright about his conversations with the ambassador. As a result, the Justice Department feared that Mr. Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. [...]
Earlier Monday, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, told reporters that “the president is evaluating the situation” about Mr. Flynn’s future. By Monday evening, Mr. Flynn’s fortunes were rapidly shifting — his resignation came roughly seven hours after Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, said on MSNBC that Mr. Trump had “full confidence” in the retired general. And when he did step down, it happened so quickly that his resignation does not appear to have been communicated to National Security Council staff members, two of whom said they learned about it from news reports. [...]
The White House had examined a transcript of a wiretapped conversation that Mr. Flynn had with Mr. Kislyak in December, according to administration officials. Mr. Flynn originally told Mr. Pence and others that the call was limited to small talk and holiday pleasantries. But the conversation, according to officials who saw the transcript of the wiretap, also included a discussion about sanctions imposed on Russia after intelligence agencies determined that President Vladimir V. Putin’s government tried to interfere with the 2016 election on Mr. Trump’s behalf.
Ashley Parker and Philip Rucker on the chaos president:
With President Trump in his fourth full week in office, the upheaval inside the administration that West Wing officials had optimistically dismissed as growing pains is now embedding itself as standard operating procedure.
Trump — distracted by political brushfires, often of his own making — has failed to fill such key posts as White House communications director, while sub-Cabinet positions across agencies and scores of ambassadorships around the globe still sit empty. Upset about damaging leaks of his calls with world leaders and other national security information, Trump has ordered an internal investigation to find the leakers. Staffers, meanwhile, are so fearful of being accused of talking to the media that some have resorted to a secret chat app — Confide — that erases messages as soon as they’re read. The chaos and competing factions that were a Trump trademark in business and campaigning now are starting to define his presidency, according to interviews with a dozen White House officials as well as other Republicans.
Derek Hawkins at The Washington Post Flynn’s short tenure is one for the history books:
Michael Flynn set a record on Monday with his resignation as the White House national security adviser: no one in the 64-year history of the role had a shorter tenure than his, not by a long shot. [...] In total, he was on the job just 24 days.
Russell Berman at The Atlantic:
Congressional Democrats who had demanded Flynn’s ouster in recent days reacted to his resignation by calling for immediate briefings from the Trump administration. “Now, we in Congress need to know who authorized his actions, permitted them, and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks,” said Representatives Elijah Cummings of Maryland and John Conyers of Michigan. “We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security.”
Jeffrey Frank at The New Yorker:
After little more than three weeks, Trump’s behavior is no more erratic than it used to be, but in the context of the Presidency it seems so. [...] The mood inside the gates is said to be distressed. “Really hard to overstate level of misery radiating from several members of White House staff over last few days,” the Times’ Maggie Haberman recently tweeted. Outside, those who worry about all this are worrying less about policies—even those that are regarded with revulsion—but, rather, about how much longer someone who controls the power to destroy the world will be able to control himself.
And, on a final note, in an excellent piece at The Week, Paul Waldman notes this is “the most dysfunctional White House in memory”:
It's three whole weeks into the Trump administration, and this is already looking like the most dysfunctional White House in memory. While we had plenty of other things to worry about when contemplating a Donald Trump victory during the campaign, this should have been utterly predictable. White House jobs are famously stressful — long hours, high stakes, and public scrutiny combine to exact a toll on everyone working there. That's why it's rare for high-ranking staff to last a full eight years; even four is a marathon, and many people leave after a year or two. But we'd normally expect people to last more than a month. For at least one of Trump's key advisers, this hasn't happened. [...]
It's true that Trump has been successful in his business of real estate and brand licensing — which he'll remind you, again and again and again. But the Trump Organization, whatever its merits as a business, is not the federal government. Voters often assume that someone with a business background "knows how to get things done" and can therefore "make government run like a business," meaning, operate with an efficiency and effectiveness that far exceeds the ability of ordinary pencil-pushing bureaucrats. The trouble is that government is nothing like a business. [...]
In addition to all his other weaknesses, he's a capricious and impulsive boss whose mood and priorities are as likely to be determined by something he saw on Morning Joe as by the nation's best interests. It's not the kind of thing that inspires confidence and loyalty. And now that the purges have begun, things could get even worse.
At least it should be fun to watch.