Not such a "wonderful man" anymore: Trump team already scheming to smear Flynn

With the revelation that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is providing information to special counsel Robert Mueller, Donald Trump’s attorneys are scrambling to eliminate any legal jeopardy that could pose.

One of their key strategies, according to a report from the Washington Post, is to call Flynn a liar:

Trump’s legal team has seized on Flynn’s agreement with prosecutors as fodder for a possible defense, if necessary. In court filings, the retired lieutenant general admitted that he lied to the FBI about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States during the December 2016 transition.

As a reminder, Trump has been heaping praise on Flynn for years, even after he fired Flynn — supposedly for lying.

He previously called Flynn a “good” and “wonderful man” who was “treated very, very unfairly by the media.” He lamented that it was a “shame” that the FBI had “destroyed” Flynn’s life. He said that “we’ll see” about pardoning him. He even suggested privately that he might give Flynn his job back once the investigation is over.

But now, all of a sudden, Flynn is a liar.

Trump cannot claim that he only just found out Flynn lied to the FBI now that he has pled guilty to the crime. He and his officials knew all along about Flynn’s conflicts and duplicity and tried to cover it up.

This reversal is a pathetic, 11th-hour attempt to save face. And it is everything we have come to expect from Trump.