title:  Team Trump Knew Flynn Broke The Law And Hired Him Anyway (DETAILS)
text: While most Americans did not know about Michael Flynn s ties to Turkey, Team Trump did. When they were vetting the former general, they did learn of Flynn s work for both Turkey and Russia. They knew he had violated the law and the U.S. Constitution and they hired him to be the National Security Advisor anyway.MSNBC s Rachel Maddow said this on her show on Friday night,  NBC News has learned from sources close to the Trump-Russia investigation that both the Trump transition and the White House did do a background check on Flynn.  She went on to say that the vetting Team Trump did of Flynn was done  very casually. The new reporting by NBC News mirrors the claims Flynn has been making for some time that he and his lawyers were upfront with the vetting team about the lobbying he was doing on behalf of the Turkish government.For its part, the White House has taken to blaming the Obama administration. Flynn worked as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). His job at the DIA did require he receive a top secret clearance but it is important to note that he was fired from that job in 2014 (he started there in 2011), this was a full year before he was scheduled to retire.This week, Press Secretary Sean Spicer indicated that the transition team relied on the vetting that had been done by the Obama Administration. The timing of this is important to note because Flynn did not start his consulting work until after he left the DIA. The vetting he received prior to that role, which is what gave him his clearance would not have shown his ties to Turkey or Russia because that work hadn t happened yet.Members of the military are barred from working for foreign governments for life, unless they receive Congressional approval. The reason is that they can be called back to duty at any time and working for a foreign government could cause a conflict of interest.Featured image via Mark Makela/Getty Images.