>If he’s not an honest man, how could they know he hadn’t already done it again? I.e.: if you can’t take him at his word, how do you know he only misled the interviewer once in the initial questioning?
Probably because he didn’t remember talking to the Russian ambassador about it. Remember that the CIA leaked the full tape of the call to the media and who remembers everything from every phone call? The facts are he made Pence look bad, but it appeared to be an honest mistake. Word is it was Flynn that made the call to resign and Trump urged him not to.
You’re half right. At first Flynn claimed he did remember what was discussed, and the sanctions were never mentioned. After that was shown to be untrue, THEN Flynn said he couldn’t recall:
‘one late December call with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, came on the same day the outgoing Obama administration issued sanctions on the Russian government for its attempted interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The incoming vice president, Mike Pence, appeared a few days later on CBS’s Face the Nation and was asked whether Flynn had discussed those sanctions with Kislyak. “I talked to General Flynn about that conversation and actually was initiated on Christmas Day he had sent a text to the Russian ambassador to express not only Christmas wishes but sympathy for the loss of life in the airplane crash that took place. It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Pence told host John Dickerson.
But former and current NSC officials told the Washington Post last week that what Pence had said wasn’t true. Through a spokesman Flynn began backing off his claim that he did not discuss the sanctions with Kislyak. Flynn’s explanation, privately to the administration and then publicly to the press, was that he couldn’t remember if he had mentioned sanctions.’