President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is involved in a search for candidates to replace Michael Flynn, according to sources close to the administration, even as the president’s senior advisers publicly continue to send mixed signals about the fate of the embattled national security adviser.
“They are trying to figure out the solution to Flynn right now,” said one of the sources. “The problem is they don’t have it yet. They need to get a solution. You can’t have a firing without an immediate replacement. You need a plan.”
The list includes retired Gen. David Petraeus, who’s scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House this week, according to two people familiar with the plans. Other possibilities: Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser under President George W. Bush; Tom Bossert, who also served as a national security aide under Bush and now oversees cybersecurity under Trump; Adm. James Stavridis, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts; and Department of Homeland Security head John Kelly.
Petraeus was briefly considered for secretary of state during the transition but was passed over in part because of his 2015 conviction for mishandling classified information.
Questions about Flynn’s status were met with conflicting responses by White House officials Monday. “The president is evaluating the situation,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Monday evening. “He's getting input, he's looking at the situation.”
Earlier in the day, Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway sent a different message in a television appearance. “General Flynn does enjoy the full confidence of the president,” Conway told MSNBC.
Trump hasn’t addressed questions about Flynn since Friday, when he told reporters on board Air Force One that he would “look into” the reports that Flynn lied about improperly discussing sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration with Russia’s ambassador before Trump’s inauguration.
Flynn spent the weekend with Trump in Florida at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort and was part of the delegation welcoming Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to the White House on Monday.
A White House spokeswoman declined to respond to questions from POLITICO about the search for potential Flynn successors.
Trump has long admired Petraeus and sought his counsel. "Trump likes him, he respects him," said a person close to Trump.
Petraeus did not respond to an email seeking comment.
Hadley, who served in previous Republican administrations, also did not respond to a request for comment. During the campaign, he declined to sign letters issued by mainstream Republicans criticizing Trump’s most provocative stances. He said at the time that he felt that should Trump win it would be advisable that he feel comfortable turning to experienced members of the party’s foreign policy establishment for advice.
Stavridis, a former NATO commander of NATO, emailed POLITICO that he has not heard anything from the White House. “All quiet in my nets,” the retired admiral said.
Flynn, a retired three-star general who was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, was one of the first and most decorated military officers to back Trump and became a fixture on the stump during the presidential campaign.
It would have broken longstanding precedent, and possibly the law, for Flynn to have discussed the sanctions with the Kremlin before the inauguration, when he was still a private citizen. Flynn had acknowledged speaking to Russia’s ambassador in that time but denied that the sanctions came up, and Vice President Mike Pence went on television to back him up.
Spicer also said it was his understanding that Flynn had apologized to Vice President Mike Pence, who went on television and said, based on conversations with Flynn, that sanctions weren’t mentioned on the call.
Democrats on the House oversight committee delivered a letter Monday night to committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) asking for an investigation into Flynn and his ties to Russia. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also called for Flynn to be fired. “Michael Flynn’s conduct was alarming enough before his secret communications with the Russians were exposed,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Now, we have a national security adviser who cannot be trusted not to put Putin before America.”
Bryan Bender, Madeline Conway, and Darren Samuelsohn contributed to this report.