Flashback

Thu, 16 Feb 2017

Trump:  Mike Flynn is a wonderful person, and I asked for resignation, he respectfully gave it. He is a man who there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who's with us today, and I was not happy with the way that information was given. He didn't have to do that because what he did wasn't wrong. What he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves, in this room, were given that information. Because that was classified information that was given illegally. That's the real problem.

You know, you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all, you know, "fake news" fabricated deal to try to make up for the loss of the Democrats and the press plays right into it. In fact, I saw a couple of the people supposedly involved with all of this. They know nothing about it, never in Russia, never made a phone call, never received a phone call. It's all fake news. It's all fake news.

[...]

You know, first everybody got excited because they thought he did something wrong. After they thought about it, it turned out he was just doing his job.

[...]

Reporter: Mr. President, I just want to clarify an important point, I think. Did you direct Mike Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador? Prior to your inauguration? Would you have fired him if that information hadn't leaked out?

Trump: I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence. Very simple. Mike was doing his job. He was calling countries, his counterparts, so it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it. I would have directed him to do it if I thought he was not doing it. I did not direct him, but I would have directed him because that's his job.

[...]

You know, I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him if he did not do it, okay?

  CNBC

Yeah, that's in Mueller's file.