Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., ripped President Donald Trump for his "indefensible" choice to appoint retired Gen. Michael Flynn as his national security adviser on CNN Thursday.
"That's a failure of vetting, its a failure of judgement," Dent said of Flynn, who was fired only weeks into the administration's tenure for not disclosing communications with Russian officials. "There were certainly a lot of questions about Gen. Flynn's suitability for that position, even before this revelation of the Turkish connection. So I really can't defend that, its indefensible."
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Flynn informed Trump's transition team of an investigation into his work as a lobbyist for Turkey prior to the president's inauguration. Flynn ran an influence campaign on behalf of Inovo BV, a Dutch company owned by Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin, who has close ties to his country's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Flynn accepted $600,000 for a 90-day contract targeting Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in Pennsylvania whom Erdogan implicated in last summer's attempted coup in Turkey.
Flynn did not immediately register as a foreign agent after taking the job, which is required by law for Americans who represent the interest of another government. He only did so in March. In an op-ed for The Hill. the day before the election, Flynn advocated for an improved relationship with Turkey and denounced Gulen as "a shady Islamic mullah."
After being appointed national security adviser, Flynn quickly became the subject of controversy after reports emerged that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak about Obama-era sanctions, which took place before Trump's inauguration. Flynn would later resign.
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