Obama administration reviewed Flynn's security clearance, Trump WH says

The White House today attempted to shift blame for the vetting of President Trump's former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, to the Obama administration.

"His [security] clearance was last reissued by the Obama administration in 2016 with full knowledge of his activities that occurred in 2015," press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters this afternoon.

When asked whether Flynn would still have his job if he hadn't been fired by the president in February, Spicer said, "I will just say they think the president made the right call at the right time and it's clearly paid off."

Spicer also said the Trump administration welcomes the Department of Defense investigation of Flynn.

Flynn, who was President Trump's first national security adviser, was fired after it was discovered that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about conversations he had with a Russian official.

Flynn had been warned in a letter from the Pentagon against receiving payments from foreign governments in 2014 after leaving the Defense Intelligence Agency, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., revealed today.

The letter, released today by Cummings, was a primer on ethics restrictions that apply to retired military officers and it warned that Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, was prohibited from receiving foreign payments without prior approval, under the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The Defense Department's inspector general opened the probe today into whether Flynn received permission to accept foreign payments.

Documents released in March showed Flynn was paid a total of $56,200 in 2015 by three Russian firms owned by or closely tied to the Kremlin.

ABC News' Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.