Flynn did this to himself. he wasn’t completely honest with Pence
Allegedly...
That’s the narrative
If the FBI bugged the conversation then there is a complete transcript of who said what to who in those conversations
A man who was going to become potus national security advisor 3 weeks after obama tried to foment a strategic crisis with Russia could and should have been telling the Russians the new administration would be reviewing obamas reckless petulance
” after the inauguration we’ll have more flexibility”
For all we know Flynn may have helped avert a crisis since the Russian reaction to obamas provocation was cool and low key
they didn’t turn around and eject 35 American diplomats from Russia on 48 notice for “ spying” , close down the embassy school, padlock the U.S. embassy’s weekend dascha or slap sanctions on US businesses
For all we know Flynns doing so may have provoked the wrath of tptb that wanted to goad Putin into an aggressive response do they could ratchet up another notch and another and another
So Flynn took a hit and now they want to replace him with a chicken hawk more acceptable to Lindsey graham
As someone else said - Trump isn’t caving to the press. He let Flynn resign because Flynn lied to Pence and made Pence look bad spreading a lie. Trump had to protect his VP.