Trump transition team: Flynn's son doesn't work here
Donald Trump's aides sought to distance themselves Tuesday from the son of national security adviser-designate Michael Flynn, a figure involved in the dispute over fake news who at one point worked with the transition team and had been put up for a security clearance.
Flynn's son "was helping him a bit with scheduling and administrative items, but that's no longer the case," Vice President-elect Mike Pence told CNN as he was pressed about the seeming dismissal of Michael Flynn, Jr.
Pence declined to address reports that the transition team sought a security clearance for the younger Flynn, telling CNN's Jake Tapper: "Well, whatever the appropriate paperwork was to assist him in that regard, Jake, I'm sure was taking place. But that's no longer the case."
After Sunday's arrest of a man with a gun at a Washington pizzeria — the subject of false "news" reports about a child sex slave ring — congressional Democrats called on the elder Flynn and his son to apologize for tweeting out dubious stories with bad information.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general and the former director of Defense Intelligence Agency, "has regularly engaged in the reckless public promotion of conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact, with disregard for the risks that giving credence to those theories could pose to the public," said U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Was., ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.
Flynn, Jr., came to his father's defense, tweeting that the so-called "pizza gate'' fabrication would "remain a story'' until "proven false.''
The younger Flynn — who has also spread other conspiracy theories in recent months — had a Trump transition team e-mail address, but aides said he no longer works with it.
"The younger Michael Flynn was helping his father with some administration and scheduling duties early-on in the transition process, and he is no longer involved with transition efforts," said Trump spokesman Jason Miller.
On Sunday, police arrested a 28-year-old North Carolina man after he fired a rifle inside the pizza restaurant while allegedly claiming to investigate a fictitious online conspiracy.