Not know. E we dont know if the president knew about the conversations with russia when they happened and we dont know if or why the white house ignored an explicit warning that russia could blackmail his aadviser. Lets begin with dana bash who is in washington, and theres so much. Good morning to you. Theres so much to walk through this morning. Lets begin with all of the reporting you have on exactly how this all unravelled in the late hours last night. Well, the headline from Senior Administration officials who i am talking to is that they just realized and the president finally realized the situation was untenable, and they situation they describe as untenable is the idea that either now the former National Security adviser did not remember what he said in a ka r conversation with the Russian Ambassador or misled the Vice President on purpose, and that either answer was not sustainable or okay for the president s National Security adviser, and so that is why they said that it was time for Michael Flynn to go. But to give more context with an explanation, its probably better for our viewers because theres a lot to unpack, so go back in time. Obama administration announced sanctions for meddling in the election, and on december 30th, surprisingly Vladimir Putin said there would be no response, which was very odd to most people who focus on russia and how they react to things. In late december, intelligence officials turned up communications between Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador. Then fastforward to january 15th, this was the key when i was talking about the Vice President being misinformed or misled. The Vice President went on television and said, per his discussions with Michael Flynn that flynn did not discuss anything having to do with the dip phr diplomats or imposed sanctions, and then fastforward to about two weeks ago, the Justice Department, then the acting attorney general, sally yates, warned the white house that flynn could be blackmailed by russia based on the conversation that they had, and then in february 8th, flynn denied discussing sanctions with the Russian Ambassador in a Washington Post interview, and then if you fastforward even more, a flynn aide told cnn he could not rule out if sanctions were discussed and he started to backtrack on his discussions. Then the issue was starting this past weekend, guys. The president of the United States being asked about a Washington Post report, which blew this whole thing open, saying flynn did discuss sanctions and he probably did, knowing or not, mislead the president , and thats when we ended with the very late at night resignation last night by Michael Flynn. We are looking at a timeline, though, and its like watergate, theres an eightminute gap in the tape, and then there was a conversation, that was at least two weeks ago. Has the white house given any explanation about what has gone on since those two weeks . No, the answer is no. We dont know if the white House Counsel who may have gotten that information kept it from people, if he kept it intentionally from the president so he would have deniability, or if the president did know and decided it wasnt enough of a problem to take mike flynn off of key and sensitive National Security issues. I mean, he was in meetings with the National Security council. He was in meetings on National Security issues. He, of course, was involved in foreign visits and so forth, and not to mention phone calls that the president has made to foreign leaders. So that is a very important one of many important unknowns here with regard to what the white house knew about flynns actions and when they knew it. Dana, dont go anywhere. We have a lot more to discuss. Lets bring in a cnn political analysts, and theres a lot to discuss, and lets break it down piece by piece. One key question is the conversation that general flynn had with the Russian Ambassador. Did then president elect trump know about it . One of the reasons we ask, look on twitter on december 30th, president elect trump said after russia did not answer to the respond. I always thought it was unbelievable, in a literal sense, i did not believe the president couldnt know about these things, when he said i am looking into it, and this is the bestinformed person in the world, and this is the person that gets the Intelligence Briefings every day from flynn. Yeah, and that raises some hollywood type of questions, but sally yates, there are independent reporting lines through the department of justice, and there are reporting lines through the Central Intelligence agency and there are people that can tell the president at a minimum, this is a problem, and there are advisers to tell the president to do exactly that, tell him what is floating around and bring it to his attention, and if he is uninformed, that could be more devastating, but this is a president that has left things fuzzy, and the tweet shows he was aware of the issue whether or not russia was going to respond to the sanctions, and clearly that is of immediate relevance to figure out who knew what when . Lets listen to what the president said just on friday. He was asked about this by reporters on air force one. Heres his answer. I dont know about it. I have not seen it. What report is that . Reporter the Washington Post reporting that he talked to ambassador of russia i have not seen that and i will look the that. Probably the Biggest Issue going on in the white house at the time, and then nobody asked him about the situation, shockingly yesterday, some friendly media was called on. Dana went through the timeline for us. Jackie, to you, is it plausible in your mind it never made it to the desk of the president . Kellyanne conway said multiple times this morning she could not answer the question and thats not why i am here. I dont know if i could answer that question. Perhaps they were trying to shield him from this. We just dont know. You know where you are going to hear about this the most in the next 24 to 48 hours is capitol hill. Republicans are going to have to answer for this and democrats are going to be crying for vest tkpwaeugs a investigations, and this is going to fuel complaints this was not properly looked into, and this is going to be chief questions that lawmakers will have to dig into in the future. The White House Council sits on it for two weeks, and if he didnt isnt that a problem, too . A huge problem . So then theres the russia problem, right . For democrats this is clearly a political opportunity and they can bring up the question about were there contacts between the Trump Campaign and russia, and there are an active investigation into three people who was a russian adviser, and stone, a supporter of flynn, and manafort, the former campaign manager. Theres no proof of this. Lets be fair, but this is what the democrats are going to be bringing up. And ben rhodes put this on twitter, and want to get your opinion on if this is fair or not. David, is that just politics or is there something there . I think there are politics. But there are active investigations going on by these three people by the fbi, and john mccain raised this issue, he will not let this issue die, and all american intelligence agencies agreed the russians intervened in the election to undermine it and favored donald trump. Based on your reporting, what is going on right now in the white house this morning . We have seen Kellyanne Conway out there today saying she has no explanation, or doesnt have an answer for what happened from two weeks ago. Yesterday she said the president has complete confidence theres that, too. Like, 12 hours ago. Its unclear. Thats the honest answer, its unclear. It seems to me the first thing they want to do, which is the first thing that they should do is get a new National Security adviser and hope that that helps to change the narrative, and helps to change the discussion into will this white house and will the very important National Security council find somebody that will give leadership, and not just to part of the white house but to the president s Foreign Policy in general. But, you know, you have to imagine that they are understanding that these questions are going to come up. I have been asking them and have not gotten any answers yet, the key one, and did the White House Council tell anybody or tell everybody, and if so what happened with that information . Those are key questions that you can bet they are trying to figure out how to answer, and its possible that because of the frankly, because of the chaos within the white house that people who should know the answers to these questions dont. Lets just take a walk back in history a little further than you took us, dana, and lets have a listen to what Michael Flynn said at the rnc. A huge supporter and very loyal to trump throughout. This is what he said about Hillary Clinton and National Security issues calling her careless. She put our nations security at extremely high risks with her careless use of a private email server. Lets set aside the irony of that statement for a moment and talk about whether or not theres a National Security risk that could have spanned at least those three weeks when russia would have known that it had leverage over Michael Flynn. The definition of a risk is exactly that, when information goes missing, when clearly there is somebody that could be compromised and theres an obvious need to close ranks and figure out what is going on and come clean with the administration and the public, and none of those things seemed to have happened. Why when he is going to tweet about nordstroms or the hollywood stars or the media or anything else, how is it that this president never managed to criticize russia or its leader . It makes the whole thing very fraught and you start to wonder what is going on and who is driving the ship and for what reason . Michael flynn was incredibly close to President Trump, and its hard to know where his Foreign Policy ends and where trumps begins, and he was criticized for not taking the daily briefings in the transition, his excuse was Michael Flynn is briefing me every day, so not much space between these two men. Thats true, but loyalty only goes so far, and the fact that he did lie or misstate the facts at a minimum to Vice President mike pence was his undoing, and mike pence went out and defended him, and he is reportedly very upset about this, and you cant undermine the president like that, especially when you are so critical to the administration. We appreciate it. Coming up for us, a Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee not mincing words on twitter, tweeting heres what is bothering me flynns lie did not bring him down but the exposure of the lie did, and well talk about this with the congressman next. Its my decision ito make beauty last. Roc® retinol, started visibly reducing my fine lines and wrinkles in one week. And the longer i use it, the better it works. Retinol correxion® from roc. Methods, not miracles. ™ withevery late night. G. And moment away. With every click. Call. Punch. And paycheck. Youve earned your medicare. It was a deal that was made long ago, and aarp believes it should be honored. Thankfully, President Trump does too. I am going to protect and save your Social Security and your medicare. You made a deal a long time ago. Now, its congress turn. Tell them to protect medicare. Why are you checking your credit score . You dont want to ride the 13l forever, do you . The doctor said its not contagious. [coughing] credit karma, huh . Yeah, its free. Credit karma. Give yourself some credit. Its an important question you ask, but one i think with a simple answer. We have this need, you and i. From the time we were little. To peek over our neighbors fence. And once we do, we see there is wonder waiting on the other side. Every step you take, brings the world one step closer. Youll narrow the influence of narrow minds. Youll bridge continents, puncture prejudice, and keep peace. You may not always know it at the time, but one day you will look back and see that youve made this world a better place. So, the question you asked me. What is the key . Its you. General Michael Flynn has resigned as National Security adviser. Does that mean the controversy is over . No way says a congressman on the intelligence committee. He wrote this. Exposure of lie did, and white house new weeks ago and did nothing. Why . Congressman, as john said, Ranking Member of the intelligence committee. Given the fact you sit on the intel committee, and is there any indication the president knew first off that the president knew before he took office that Michael Flynn was having these conversations about sanctions with the Russian Ambassador . I cant go into the contents of the investigation, but i dont think we have anywhere near the answers to those kinds of questions yet. Our investigation is really just getting under way, but these are the questions, and how long did this relationship between flynn and the other Russian Ambassador or others affiliated with the kremlin go on, and how much was con doantkoe condoned by the president . The white house knew about the fact that flynn lied and knew the Vice President repeated the falsehood to the American People, and for Kellyanne Conway to say he is stepping down because he misled the president , and no, they misled the country, and its troubling to me that they would keep that information to himself, and its also very implausible that those others in the administration, if they were having discussions about removing flynn, would not have discussed this with the president. What the congressman is talking about here, two weeks ago, sally yates, who was acting attorney general then told the White House Council two weeks ago, and then on friday, congressman, President Trump was asked about all of this, and this is how he responded on air force one. Lets listen briefly. I havent seen it. What report is that . The Washington Post is reporting that he talked to you about the ambassador what the president said was, i havent heard about that and i will look into it. That was friday, more than two weeks after his White House Council was informed of it. Do you think the president was being straight with the American People right there . I think thats so unlikely. The fact is this is a consumer of the news, as much as he bad mouths it, he knew what the controversy was that was swirling around, and how much did he know of what sally yates communicated to the White House Council. If he didnt, that says something about if important National Security information is being kept from the president. But given this fondness for putin it begs the question if flynn was doing what the president wanted, whether he was doing it with the president s approval, and its plausible they could have discussed it after they learned President Trump was going to impose sanctions, and felt they were being boxed in and they were going to reach out to the russians immediately saying dont react, we will take care of this. There are tons of questions here. We need a thorough investigation. I would like to see in addition to what we are doing in the intelligence committee, because we have limited resources, an independent Commission Look at all of the questions because they are of such great significance to the whole country. Lets remember, the day after flynn had that conversation with the Russian Ambassador, the president then tweeted this right before taking office, great move on delay by v. Putin, meaning reacting to the shock of the counter punch. You said something to wolf blitzer on this network yesterday that we want to learn more about, and you said you have seen reports that general flynn may have used encrypted communications with the russians, and are you talking about media reports or intelligence reports . I have not seen intelligence about this, and i want to be very clear. There have been comments about this in the media, and i think this is an allegation that ought to be pursued, and