President Donald Trump fueled the growing controversy surrounding Russia's alleged involvement in November's presidential election with attacks on NBC News and the network's political director, Chuck Todd.
In two Saturday morning tweets, Trump mocked Todd's appearance, criticized the network for not providing more coverage of unproven assertions that President Barack Obama wiretapped his campaign, and called on NBC to stop covering Russia's interference in the election.
When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?
It is the same Fake News Media that said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!
The White House, meanwhile, sent mixed messages Friday about former national security adviser Michael Flynn's conditional offer to cooperate with congressional investigators looking into contacts between President Donald Trump's campaign advisers and Russia.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily media briefing he was "not going to give Mike Flynn or anybody legal advice from the podium" about whether he should testify before congressional committees if granted immunity from prosecution.
Spicer's remark was in contrast to a tweet earlier in the day from Trump that agreed Flynn should seek immunity for testifying in what he likened to politically motivated harassment campaigns.
Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!
Asked whether the White House was concerned Flynn had information that could be damaging to the Trump administration, Spicer tersely responded, "Nope."
News accounts circulated Thursday that Flynn was in talks with the House and Senate intelligence committees to try to get a promise of immunity, but that no one had agreed to his terms.
"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,'' Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement issued later Thursday.
Kelner added, "No reasonable person ... would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution."
The highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, issued a statement Friday describing Flynn's request for immunity as "a grave and momentous step" for a former senior administration official.
Schiff added it would be premature to grant Flynn's request. "There is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered," he said.
Before granting immunity to Flynn, Schiff said, the committee would first need "a detailed proffer of any intended testimony."
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, was forced to resign as one of Trump's closest advisers after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
The congressional committees are looking into whether any associates of Trump may have coordinated with agents of the Russian government seeking to meddle in last year's presidential election.
Experts told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that Russia had pulled off an unprecedented and wildly successful campaign to influence America's political conversation during the election campaign.
"Russia hopes to win the second Cold War through the force of politics, as opposed to the politics of force," said cybersecurity expert Clinton Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a global policy research group in Philadelphia. Watts detailed Russia's use of cyberattacks and an elaborate disinformation campaign to confuse U.S. voters and pit Americans against each other.
The testimony confirmed what lawmakers of both parties have been saying for months. "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election," said the committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.
Ahead of the open hearing, Putin blasted accusations of Russian electoral meddling as "provocations and lies." Asked on a television program whether Moscow had tried to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Putin said, "Read my lips: No."
Witnesses before the Intelligence Committee described voluminous and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.