Will Pence’s loyalty to Trump be returned in full by the president?

That leaves questions: Was it a deliberate decision to keep the vice president out of the meeting where the information was first shared? Why didn’t the president ever mention this to his vice president? Was it poor judgment on the part of some senior official not to tell Pence what had been learned? Was it the result of a sloppy White House operation? Finally, what role did Pence play in triggering Flynn’s forced resignation?

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One person who knows Pence described the vice president as seeming to be as aggravated over the Flynn episode as someone with Pence’s calm and moderate Midwestern temperament ever gets. Others closer to the vice president say that’s an exaggeration of the outward emotions the vice president has displayed over the past week or so, as events finally forced the president to dismiss Flynn.

One account has Pence weighing in forcefully last Monday, once the president was back from a weekend in Florida, to register his displeasure at being misled and that his displeasure hastened Flynn’s downfall. Another account suggests there was no notable difference in Pence’s demeanor between Friday morning, when he confronted Flynn about being misled, and Monday, when the discussions hardened into the decision to cut Flynn loose…

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Joel Goldstein, a professor at Saint Louis University School of Law and author of “The White House Vice Presidency,” said that, at a minimum, Pence should have been in the room when White House counsel Don McGahn briefed Trump and other senior officials about what the Justice Department had told him about Flynn.

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