White House press secretary Sean Spicer spent Tuesday's press briefing circling the wagons around Donald Trump's handling of former national security adviser Michael Flynn while simultaneously maligning former acting Attorney General Sally Yates as an ineffective partisan hack.
Spicer said Yates’ decision while heading the Department of Justice not to defend Trump's Muslim ban—which had been kept secret from her by the White House—"vindicates" the administration's skepticism of her.
In fact, Spicer went so far as to admit that Yates had been purposely excluded from the ban's roll out.
"Ultimately, we were proven right about who needed to be in the loop on that."
Asked if Trump's eventual firing of Flynn "vindicated" Yates' warnings about the threat Flynn posed, Spicer said, "I don't know. I don't know what Don saw," referring to White House counsel Don McGahn. (Yes, the same one who asked Yates to explain why Flynn's public lies were cause for concern.)
Spicer embarked on his Yates smear fest after he explained right out of the gate why Trump has repeatedly come to the defense of Flynn.
"The president does not want to smear a good man."
Wow. Trump launched his career political career smearing President Obama as an illegitimate president. He's insulted any number of judges, especially when they're of Latino descent. He'll pretty much smear anyone—even Ted Cruz's father.
But Mike Flynn, the guy who likely broke the law by failing to disclose his work as a foreign agent for Turkey and his payments from Russia? Smearing him is apparently beyond the pale.
Sally Yates, on the other hand, who on Monday delivered a master class in judgment, poise, and legal rationale that left even pompous windbag Ted Cruz speechless—she's one shifty broad, amiright?
But did the White House put any restrictions—any at all—on Flynn in the wake of Yates' warnings? I mean, just in case.
"I'm not aware of any. The decision that we made was the right one."
Later Spicer added that McGahn had asked Yates back for a second discussion of Flynn the day after they first met because she hadn't "done an effective job the first time."
But on the sticking point of the yawning 18-day gap between when the disgraced Flynn was fired and when Yates first informed the White House that he had misled the vice president and ultimately the public about his contacts with Russia, Spicer had no answer whatsoever. His defense?
Yates couldn't be trusted and still can't (even though she was proven correct). White House officials didn't have access to the documents for another seven days (but even after that, still did nothing).
Finally, Spicer's most telling response after he was asked repeatedly about that 18-day window:
"Look, we're not going to relitigate the past on this ... The president made the right decision, and we've moved on."
Of course they can't "relitigate" the Flynn flap—they never litigated it in the first place.