WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned late on Monday after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

Flynn’s resignation came hours after it was reported that the Justice Department had warned the White House weeks ago that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump took power on Jan. 20.

Flynn’s departure was a sobering development in Trump’s young presidency, a 24-day period during which his White House has been repeatedly distracted by miscues and internal dramas.

The departure could slow Trump’s bid to warm up relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Flynn submitted his resignation hours after Trump, through a spokesman, pointedly declined to publicly back Flynn, saying he was reviewing the situation and talking to Pence.

Flynn had promised Pence he had not discussed U.S. sanctions with the Russians, but transcripts of intercepted communications, described by U.S. officials, showed that the subject had come up in conversations between him and the Russian ambassador.

Such contacts could potentially be in violation of a law banning private citizens from engaging in foreign policy, known as the Logan Act.

Pence had defended Flynn in television interviews and was described by administration officials as upset about being misled.

“Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn said in his resignation letter.

Retired General Keith Kellogg, who has been chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, was named the acting national security adviser while Trump determines who should fill the position.

Kellogg, retired General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, and Robert Harward, a former deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, are under consideration for the position, a White House official said. Harward was described by officials as the leading candidate.

A U.S. official confirmed a Washington Post report that Sally Yates, the then-acting U.S. attorney general, told the White House late last month that she believed Flynn had misled them about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador.

She said Flynn might have put himself in a compromising position, possibly leaving himself vulnerable to blackmail, the official said. Yates was later fired for opposing Trump’s temporary entry ban for people from seven mostly Muslim nations.

CHANGE LESS LIKELY?

A U.S. official, describing the intercepted communications, said Flynn did not make any promises about lifting the sanctions.

But he did indicate that sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama on Russia for its Ukraine incursion “would not necessarily carry over to an administration seeking to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia,” the official said.

FILE PHOTO: Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) sits next to retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn (L) as they attend an exhibition marking the 10th anniversary of RT (Russia Today) television news channel in Moscow, Russia, December 10, 2015. Sputnik/Mikhail Klimentyev/Kremlin via REUTERS

Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, was an early supporter of Trump and shares his interest in shaking up the establishment in Washington. He frequently raised eyebrows among Washington’s foreign policy establishment for trying to persuade Trump to warm up U.S. relations with Russia.

A U.S. official said Flynn’s departure, coupled with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and Syria and Republican congressional opposition to removing sanctions on Russia, removes Trump’s most ardent advocate of taking a softer line toward Putin.

Flynn’s leaving “may make a significant course change less likely, at least any time soon,” the official said.

Another official said Flynn’s departure may strengthen the hands of some cabinet secretaries, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

However, the second official said, Flynn’s exit could also reinforce the power of presidential aides Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, whom he described as already having the president’s ear.

Congressional Democrats expressed alarm at the developments surrounding Flynn and called for a classified briefing by administration officials to explain what had happened.

“We are communicating this request to the Department of Justice and FBI this evening,” said Democratic representatives John Conyers of Michigan and Elijah Cummings of Maryland.

U.S. Representative Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Flynn’s departure does not end the questions over his contacts with the Russians.

“The Trump administration has yet to be forthcoming about who was aware of Flynn’s conversations with the ambassador and whether he was acting on the instructions of the president or any other officials, or with their knowledge,” Schiff said.

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The committee’s chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, thanked Flynn for his service.

“Washington D.C. can be a rough town for honorable people, and Flynn — who has always been a soldier, not a politician —deserves America’s gratitude and respect,” he said.</s>Trustworthiness "became a big problem" for Michael Flynn and led to his resignation as national security advisor, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told CNBC on Tuesday.

"On one hand [he] was setting up a national security council in a true interagency way which hasn't been done in a long, long time. So I applaud his efforts in that regard," Corker said on "Squawk Box."

But on the other hand, the Tennessee Republican said, "the credibility issue became a big problem [for Flynn] when it was revealed what conversations were with the Russian ambassador. And he stepped away."

Less than a month on the job, Flynn abruptly quit as President Donald Trump's national security advisor Monday night after disclosures that he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other senior officials about his communications about sanctions with Russia's ambassador to the United States.

Keith Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general and a top policy advisor to Trump during the campaign, was appointed as acting national security advisor.

Two other candidates being considered on a permanent basis are retired Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward and David Petraeus, a retired general and former director of Central Intelligence.

Corker told CNBC he does not have a favorite.

"I don't know the other two individuals as well as I know David [Petraeus]. He's from my standpoint, an American hero. Somebody I respect greatly. No one is more knowledgeable regarding issues around the world," the senator said.



Petraeus resigned as CIA chief in 2012, under fire for sharing classified information with his biographer, with whom he was having an extramarital affair. He later pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information, and was fined and put on probation.</s>WASHINGTON — White House National Security adviser Michael Flynn resigned late Monday night amid reports he discussed U.S.-imposed sanctions with a Russian ambassador before President Donald Trump took office.

Flynn’s departure marked another embarrassing setback for an administration just over three weeks old, on a subject that has for months given pause to both Democrats and Republicans — connections between Trump and Russia.

Earlier Monday, a top aide said the Trump was “evaluating the situation” while another said the president had “full confidence” in Flynn.

Flynn’s departure marked another embarrassing setback for an administration just over three weeks old, on a subject that has for months given pause to both Democrats and Republicans - connections between Trump and Russia.

A replacement for Flynn had not been named but among those said to be under consideration late Monday night were retired Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Keith Kellogg and former CIA Director and four-star Army general David Petraeus.

Flynn is believed to have discussed U.S. sanctions with a Russian ambassador before Trump took office and misled Vice President Mike Pence on the contents of the call.

The White House until Monday had stayed silent publicly on Flynn.

In a statement announcing his resignation, Flynn said he “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology.”

Monday night, The Washington Post reported that the acting attorney general had informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Flynn had misled senior administration officials and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the Russian diplomat, had told Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the Post reported, citing current and former U.S. officials. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the information.

The Post, citing nine sources, reported Thursday that the retired lieutenant general may have signaled to Russia that it can expect a reprieve from the sanctions.

Spicer told reporters it was his “understanding” that Flynn has apologized to Pence.

The Kremlin denied that Flynn and Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak discussed the lifting of sanctions, Reuters reported.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) separately said that Flynn should be fired if he talked about sanctions with Russia.

Flynn had sat in the front row earlier Monday at a news conference Trump hosted with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trump and Trudeau downplayed their ideological differences on immigration and free trade while pledging to strengthen their relationship.

Trump stressed the need for partnership against terrorism.

“In these dangerous times, it is more important than ever that we continue to strengthen our vital alliance,” he said. “The United States is deeply grateful for Canada’s contribution to the counter-ISIS effort.”

Trudeau noted the neighboring countries benefit from more than $2 billion in two-way trade and said in French that “maintaining strong economic ties is vital to our mutual success.”

Trump has threatened to scrap or renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying he can get a better deal for the United States.

He moderated his tone Monday, saying he will be “tweaking” NAFTA, and the impact on Canada will be “much less severe” than on Mexico.

Trump also was asked whether he believes the U.S.-Canadian border is secure.

“You can never be totally confident,” he responded.

The president said more generally that he wants the United States to have a “big, beautiful, open door,” but he believes immigrants must be properly vetted to ensure they aren’t a threat.

Trudeau declined to criticize Trump on the travel ban, saying, “The last thing Canadians expect is for me to come down and lecture another country on how they choose to govern themselves.”</s>Donald Trump’s national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, resigned late Monday following an escalating controversy in Washington over reports that he discussed anti-Russian sanctions with Moscow’s ambassador to the US in the month before President Donald Trump took office.

Speculation within the media was rife Monday that Flynn could either be fired or forced to resign following the revelations concerning his discussions with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in light of the previous repeated denials from Flynn, Vice President Mike Pence and others in the administration that they included sanctions.

While the conflict within the administration was initially reported as centering on Flynn supposedly lying to Pence about the content of his conversation with the Russian ambassador, the Washington Post reported late Monday that Sally Yates, the acting attorney general fired by Trump for refusing to defend his Muslim ban against court challenges, had informed the incoming administration of the discussion of sanctions last month.

The conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador had been bugged by US intelligence agencies, which first provided transcripts to the outgoing Obama administration and then leaked them to the media.

The conversations in question—Reuters reports that there were five separate calls—took place on December 29, the same day that the Obama administration announced a series of measures targeting Russia in connection with unsubstantiated allegations that the government of Vladimir Putin hacked into the Democratic National Committee and sought to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. The moves include the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the imposition of economic sanctions against Russian intelligence agencies and officials.

According to the account of the conversations published by the Post last week, Flynn’s comments to the Russian ambassador “were interpreted by some senior US officials as an inappropriate and potentially illegal signal to the Kremlin that it could expect a reprieve from sanctions … Flynn urged Russia not to overreact to the penalties being imposed by President Barack Obama.”

A seldom enforced law known as the Logan Act bars private citizens from engaging in diplomacy with a foreign government “in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States.”

The Washington Post reported Monday that support for Flynn within the administration had “eroded largely because of a belief that he was disingenuous about Russia” and cited one White House official as saying, “The knives are out for Flynn.”

The website Politico, meanwhile, reported that “Trump has told several people that he is particularly displeased with national security advisor Michael Flynn over reports that he had top-secret discussions with Russian officials and lied about it.” It quoted a person said to be “familiar” with Trump’s thoughts on the matter as saying, “I would be worried if I was General Flynn.”

Speaking on Sunday morning talk shows, Stephen Miller, the ultra-right Republican operative designated as Trump’s “chief policy adviser,” made no attempt to deflect the denunciations of Flynn. “It’s not for me to tell you what’s in the president’s mind,” he said, when asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” whether the president still had confidence in his national security advisor.

This was followed on Monday by contradictory statements from Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, who said the president had full confidence in Flynn, and White House spokesman Sean Spicer, who reported, “The president is evaluating the situation. He is speaking to…Vice President Pence relative to the conversation the vice president had with General Flynn and also speaking to various other people about what he considers the single most important subject there is, our national security.”

For his part, a spokesman for the Kremlin declined to comment on the matter. “We would like to give no comments on any internal discussions in Washington,” said Dmitry Peskov.

It is difficult to believe that Flynn initiated the talks with the Russian ambassador without Trump’s knowledge. He emerged as one of the then-Republican candidate’s closest and most loyal advisors during the election campaign and was acting on an agenda that Trump himself had spelled out of seeking at least a tactical rapprochement with Russia.

That position on foreign policy was met with a vitriolic campaign in which Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her supporters revived the rhetoric of McCarthyism, seeking to foment fear about Russia and painting Trump as an agent of Moscow.

The Democrats’ attacks reflected the position of the leading sections of the US military and intelligence apparatus, which has invested substantial resources in the buildup of military aggression against Moscow, from the Middle East, to the 2014 coup in Ukraine, to the ongoing deployment of US and NATO troops on Russia’s western borders.

The Obama administration’s imposition of a new round of sanctions last December had the aim of further boxing the Trump administration into the confrontation with Russia.

To the extent that Trump has indicated a new global strategy, it has been one of attempting to drive a wedge between Russia, on the one hand, and Iran and China, on the other, in order to concentrate US aggression against these two countries. This is clearly not a policy of pulling back from the drive toward global war that developed uninterruptedly under the Obama administration, but merely changing the order of targets.

In response to the latest revelations about Flynn’s meetings with the Russian ambassador and denials of what the CIA has now leaked to the media, leading Democrats mounted a campaign demanding that Flynn be stripped of his security clearance, suspended as national security advisor or fired.

The Democrats’ targeting Flynn was carried out in close collaboration with the intelligence agencies, whose leading layers had little use for the former lieutenant general when he was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and stridently promoted a theory of a new world war against Islam, while seeking non-existent “intelligence” linking Iran with ISIS.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) issued a statement Monday declaring that Flynn “cannot be trusted not to put Putin before America,” adding, “This Administration has exhausted its excuses. Vladimir Putin’s grip on President Trump must be investigated, exposed and broken. National security demands that General Flynn be fired immediately.”

Meanwhile, two leading Senate Democrats, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, called for an investigation of Flynn’s actions.

Just a week and a half ago, Flynn came forward as the spokesman for the real policy of escalating militarism and war that underlies Trump’s “America First” policy, when he marched into a White House press conference announcing that “we are officially putting Iran on notice” over the country’s ballistic missile test. At the time, there was no comparable hue and cry over this ultimatum and implied threat of a new and far bloodier war in the Middle East. Rather, the reaction of the Democrats and the media that supports them was either subdued or sympathetic.

The Democrats are neither able nor willing to mount any significant opposition to Trump’s policy of war abroad and reaction at home. Instead, they continue with their relentless campaign to demonize Russia and denounce Trump for being too close to Putin, a point of attack that aligns them closely with leading factions in the military-intelligence apparatus.

The White House issued a statement announcing that Flynn would be replaced with Joseph Kellogg, another retired lieutenant general, who had served as chief of staff of the National Security Council. While in the military, Kellogg played a prominent role in the US occupation regime in Iraq. After retirement, he went to work for several military contractors.

Meanwhile, it was also reported that Trump has arranged an interview with David Petraeus on Tuesday, possibly to take the post of national security advisor. Petraeus, a former CIA director and four-star general, was forced to resign in 2012 and was subsequently convicted in connection with sharing classified information with his mistress and biographer, Paula Broadwell. In testimony to before a House panel at the end of last month, Petraeus portrayed Russia and the Putin government as attempting to undermine “our entire democratic way of life.”</s>Retired General Keith Kellogg was named the acting national security adviser while Trump determines who should fill the position.

President Donald Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, resigned late on Monday under scrutiny over whether he discussed the possibility of lifting US sanctions on Russia before Trump took office.

Flynn submitted his resignation hours after Trump said through a spokesman that he was reviewing the situation and talking to Vice President Mike Pence. Flynn had promised Pence he had not discussed sanctions with the Russians but it was later discovered that the subject had come up.

"Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology," Flynn said in his resignation letter.

Retired General Keith Kellogg, who has been chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, was named the acting national security adviser while Trump determines who should fill the position.

Retired General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, is under consideration for the position, a White House official said.

Flynn's resignation came after it was reported that the Justice Department warned the White House weeks ago that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for contacts with Russian officials before Trump took power on Jan. 20.

A US official confirmed a Washington Post report that Sally Yates, the then-acting US attorney general, told the White House late last month that she believed Flynn had misled them about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

She said Flynn might have put himself into a compromising position, possibly leaving himself vulnerable to blackmail, the official said. Yates was later fired for opposing Trump's temporary entry ban for people from seven mostly Muslim nations.

Flynn, a retired US Army lieutenant general, was an early supporter of Trump and shares his interest in shaking up the establishment in Washington. He has frequently raised eyebrows among Washington's foreign policy establishment for trying to persuade Trump to warm up US relations with Russia.</s>General Michael Flynn was one of the first appointments president -- made following his election but now the national security advisor is the first to leave the administration. At issue whether Flinn lied to the vice president about discussing US sanctions with Russian officials before he even assumed office. He said he didn't and vice president pence repeated those claims. It's what I can confirm having spoken him about it is that those conversations that happen to. Occur around the time. That the United States two took action to expel diplomats. Had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions. The multiple sources tell ABC news of the topic of sanctions did come up. And the FBI sent a warning to the White House concern that a high level official caught in a public light could be subject to blackmail. Clint and in a member of the trump campaign team and top aide Kellyanne Connolly on Monday afternoon maintained that he had the support of the White House and offering us into the full confidence in the president. About Monday night Flynn was out. And lieutenant general Joseph Keith Kellogg junior had been appointed acting national security advisor in his letter of resignation released by the White House Flynn blames of fast pace of events rating I inadvertently briefed the vice president elect and others with incomplete information. Regarding my phone calls with the Russian. And retired vice admiral Robert forward Lana Zack ABC news Washington that.</s>National security adviser Michael Flynn has resigned after reports he misled Trump administration officials about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

Flynn's departure less than one month into the Trump administration marks an extraordinarily early shakeup in the president's senior team of advisers. Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter throughout the campaign, but his ties to Russia caused concern among other senior aides.

Flynn initially told Trump advisers that he did not discuss sanctions with the Russian envoy during the transition. Vice President Mike Pence, apparently relying on information from Flynn, publicly vouched for the national security adviser.

Flynn later told White House officials that he may have discussed sanctions with the ambassador.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s embattled national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned late Monday night, following reports that he had misled Vice-President Mike Pence and other officials about his contacts with Russia. His departure upends Trump’s senior team after less than one month in office.

In a resignation letter, Flynn said he gave Vice-President Mike Pence and others “incomplete information” about his calls with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. The vice-president, apparently relying on information from Flynn, initially said the national security adviser had not discussed sanctions with the Russian envoy, though Flynn later conceded the issue may have come up.

Trump named retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as the acting national security adviser. Kellogg had previously been appointed the National Security Council chief of staff and advised Trump during the campaign. Trump is also considering former CIA Director David Petraeus and Vice Admiral Robert Harward, a U.S. Navy SEAL, for the post, according to a senior administration official.

The Trump team’s account of Flynn’s discussions with the Russian envoy changed repeatedly over several weeks, including the number of contacts, the dates of those contacts and ultimately, the content of the conversations.

Late last month, the Justice Department warned the White House that Flynn could be in a compromised position as a result of the contradictions between the public depictions of the calls and what intelligence officials knew to be true based on recordings of the conversations, which were picked up as part of routine monitoring of foreign officials communications in the U.S.

A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Flynn was in frequent contact with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the day the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for election-related hacking, as well as at other times during the transition.

An administration official and two people with knowledge of the situation confirmed the Justice Department warnings on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. It was unclear when Trump and Pence learned about the Justice Department outreach.

The Washington Post was the first to report the communication between former acting attorney general Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, and the Trump White House. The Post also first reported last week that Flynn had indeed spoken about sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

Trump never voiced public support for Flynn after that initial report, but continued to keep his national security adviser close. Flynn spent the weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and was in the president’s daily briefing and calls with foreign leaders Monday. He sat in the front row of Trump’s news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday afternoon.

White House officials sent contradictory messages about Flynn’s status throughout the day. Counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump had “full confidence” in Flynn, while spokesman Sean Spicer said the president was “evaluating the situation” and consulting with Pence about his conversations with the national security adviser.

Asked whether the president had been aware that Flynn might have planned to discuss sanctions with the Russian envoy, Spicer said, “No, absolutely not.”

Flynn’s discussions with the Russian raised questions about whether he offered assurances about the incoming administration’s new approach. Such conversations would breach diplomatic protocol and possibly violate the Logan Act, a law aimed at keeping citizens from conducting diplomacy.

Administration officials said misleading Pence was ultimately Flynn’s downfall, though they insisted he resigned and was not fired by Trump.

Flynn was spotted near the Oval Office just after 10 p.m. Monday. As uncertainty about his future swirled, several of the president’s top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus and counsel Don McGahn, ducked in and out of late-night meetings in the West Wing.

California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Flynn’s resignation “does not end questions over his contacts with the Russians.” He said the White House has yet to be forthcoming about whether Flynn was acting at the behest of the president or others.

Flynn’s resignation comes as Trump and his top advisers seek to steady the White House after a rocky start. The president, who seeks input from a wide range of business associates, friends and colleagues, has been asking people their opinions on his senior team, including Spicer and chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Advisers have privately conceded that the White House spit out too many disparate messages in the first few weeks, though they also note that the president’s own tweets sometimes muddy the day’s plans before most of the White House staff has arrived for work.

Trump voiced support for Priebus Monday, saying the chief of staff was doing, “not a good job, a great job.” But he did not make a similar show of support for his national security adviser.

Over the weekend, Trump told associates he was troubled by Flynn’s situation, but did not say whether he planned to ask him to step down, according to a person who spoke with him recently. Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter during the campaign, but he was viewed skeptically by some in the administration’s national security circles, in part because of his ties to Russia.

In 2015, Flynn was paid to attend a gala dinner for Russia Today, a Kremlin-backed television station, and sat next to Russian President Vladimir Putin during the event.

Flynn apologized to Pence about the matter on Friday, according to an administration official. The official said Pence was relying on information from Flynn when he went on television and denied that sanctions were discussed with Kislyak.

Kellogg takes the helm of the National Security Council at a time when the young administration is grappling with a series of national security challenges, including North Korea’s reported ballistic missile launch. The president, who was joined at his Mar-a-Lago estate by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the weekend, voiced solidarity with Japan.

The White House is also dealing with fallout from the rocky rollout of Trump’s immigration executive order, which has been blocked by the courts. The order was intended to suspend the nation’s refugee program and bar citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey and Matthew Daly in Washington and Jonathan Lemire in New York contributed to this report.</s>WASHINGTON (CNN) – Embattled White House national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned Monday night, an abrupt end to a brief tenure.

His departure came just after reports surfaced that the Justice Department warned the Trump administration last month that Flynn misled administration officials regarding his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians.

“I inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology,” Flynn wrote, according to a copy of his resignation letter obtained by CNN.

“I am tendering my resignation, honored to have served our nation and the American people in such a distinguished way,” he wrote. “I know with the strong leadership of President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and the superb team they are assembling, this team will go down in history as one of the greatest presidencies in US history.”

The move comes less than a month into the job, making him one of the shortest-serving senior presidential advisers in modern history.

Gen. Keith Kellogg will be the interim national security adviser, multiple sources tell CNN. He most recently served as National Security Council chief of staff.

A senior administration official said Kellogg, retired Gen. David Petraeus and former Vice Admiral Bob Harward are possible replacements for Flynn. Another senior official told CNN Tuesday that Harward is considered the top contender for the job.

Petraeus is going to the White House Tuesday, according to sources inside and close to the administration.

“He is making a run” for the job, one source said, but noted “he has a lot of baggage.”

The sudden exit marks the most public display yet of disarray at the highest levels of the new administration, which has faced repeated questions over a slew of controversies and reports of infighting among senior aides during its first three weeks.

The resolution had been heading this way for three days, an administration source told CNN.

More than whether he really had a conversation with the Russians about sanctions, the key issue internally was whether he told the truth to Pence, the source said.

The White House concluded at the very least, Flynn didn’t mean to mislead the vice president, but may have because he couldn’t remember what he said to the Russians.

“Not remembering is not a quality we can have for the national security adviser,” the source said.

An administration source said that Trump “hung in there” when it came to Flynn, but there was a “flood of information” that finally made it clear he had to resign.

Asked if Trump is disappointed, another administration official said: “He’s moving on.”

A pair of Democratic lawmakers — Reps. John Conyers, Jr., top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on the House oversight Committee — sent a request for a “full classified briefing” on the circumstances surrounding Flynn to the Justice Department and FBI Monday night following Flynn’s resignation.

“We in Congress need to know who authorized his actions, permitted them and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks. We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security,” they wrote in a statement.

They added: “This new disclosure warrants a full classified briefing by all relevant agencies, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, as soon as possible and certainly before Thursday, February 16. We are communicating this request to the Department of Justice and FBI this evening.”

The shakeup now leaves Trump without one of his closest and longest-serving advisers. Flynn had counseled Trump on foreign policy and national security matters since early in the 2016 presidential race.

Flynn was not able to definitively refute a Washington Post story late last week that his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak included communication about the sanctions. It is illegal for unauthorized private citizens to negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the US.

The controversy intensified after the report put Vice President Mike Pence and several senior White House advisers in an uncomfortable position, as they had denied in TV interviews weeks earlier that Flynn discussed sanctions with the ambassador. Some administration officials said Flynn must have misled Pence and others.

“The knives are out,” a White House official told CNN on Friday, noting that “there’s a lot of unhappiness about this.”

Many expressed concern at the idea that Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency, would discuss sanctions with a foreign official whose calls are regularly monitored by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

A US official confirmed to CNN on Friday that Flynn and Kislyak did speak about sanctions, among other matters, during a December call.

But after the call was made public, Pence told CBS News on January 15 that Flynn did not talk with Kislyak about the sanctions, which the Obama administration recently levied due to Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 elections.

“They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Pence told CBS News.

On Friday, an aide close to the national security adviser told CNN that Flynn could not rule out that he spoke about sanctions on the call.

The White House official blamed much of the outcry against Flynn on a Washington culture always in search of a scalp, but people within Trump’s orbit did little to defend Flynn during appearances on Sunday news shows.

Stephen Miller, White House policy director, was asked directly about Flynn’s future on a number of Sunday talk shows. Miller responded by saying he was not the appropriate official to ask.

“I don’t have any answers today,” Miller said in response to questions about whether Flynn misled the vice president. “I don’t have any information one way or another to add anything to the conversation.”</s>National security adviser Michael Flynn resigns after reports he misled White House about his contacts with Russia. https://t.co/RUYYIsWLSp
Michael T. Flynn resigns as National Security Advisor following controversy over his alleged contacts with Russian officials. Retired United States Army general Keith Kellogg subsequently becomes acting National Security Advisor until a permanent replacement is appointed.