Follow the White House press briefing

Earlier Tuesday, a judge delayed President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn's sentencing.

During the White House press briefing, a reporter asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders to clarify if the White House was disputing that Flynn "is a liar."

"We're disputing any actions he engaged in had nothing to do with the President. Just because, maybe he did do those things, but that doesn't have anything to do with the President directly," Sanders said.

Sanders also said she would not like to revisit her Fox News comments asserting that Flynn was “ambushed” by the FBI during an interview with him in 2017.

At Flynn’s sentencing hearing on Tuesday, he said he knew lying to federal investigators was illegal and accepted responsibility for his crimes.

“No. We still firmly believe -- look the things that may have taken place, again, that’s for the judge to make that determination, whether he engaged in anything inappropriate. What we do know that was inappropriate by the … self-admittance of (fired FBI Director) James Comey is that the FBI broke standard protocol in the way that they came in and ambushed Gen. Flynn and in the way that they questioned him and in the way that they encouraged not to have White House counsel’s office present. And we know that because James Comey told us that and he said the very reason that they did it was because … they thought they could get away with it,” Sanders said, adding, “We don’t have any reason to walk that back.”

Sanders later said there is “certainly concern” over Flynn’s lies, but tried to distance those lies from the President.

Asked why the President was making positive comments about Flynn, Sanders said, “It’s perfectly acceptable for the President to make a positive comment about somebody while we wait to see what the court’s determination is.”

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