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Ivanka Trump once “took over” one of Chris Christie’s transition team meetings last fall and essentially told Michael Flynn that he could have whatever job he wanted because of his “amazing loyalty” to her father, President Donald Trump, The New Yorker reported Monday in an extensive profile of Vice President Mike Pence.
Christie, the New Jersey governor, led the transition team prior to Pence replacing him. Christie was loathed by Jared Kushner, Ivanka’s husband and now a senior White House adviser, because of his prosecution of Kushner’s father while he served as a US attorney.
As transition chair, Christie warned Trump not to give Flynn, a retired general who was ousted as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency by President Barack Obama, a high-level job. The New Yorker reported that Flynn was not on any of the Christie-led transition team’s lists for government appointments, as Christie considered him too risky.
During a November 11 meeting Christie was chairing, four sources told the New Yorker that Ivanka invited Flynn, who attended with Gen. Keith Kellogg.
“Gentlemen, can I help you?” Christie reportedly asked.
Ivanka, then a member of the transition’s executive council and now an assistant to the president, announced that she invited the pair. Then, as Christie tried to reclaim control of the meeting, Ivanka took over, the publication reported. She cited Flynn’s “amazing loyalty” to her father and asked, “General, what job do you want?”
A participant in the meeting told The New Yorker, “It was like Princess Ivanka had laid the sword on Flynn’s shoulders and said, ‘Rise and go forth.'”
A source close to Ivanka didn’t deny the account to The New Yorker, but said her role was exaggerated.
Flynn said he would settle for national security adviser if he could not be defense secretary. Hours after the meeting, Christie was pushed out and replaced by Pence, who was not opposed to Flynn’s hiring. Roughly a week later, Trump announced him as national security adviser.
Once Trump took office, more was revealed about Flynn’s paid lobbying during the campaign on behalf of Turkish interests, in addition to the nature of his conversations with Russian officials during the transition period. Pence delivered some misleading statements about Flynn, who later resigned because of allegedly misleading the vice president.
Flynn has become a main focus in the multiple investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
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