A journalist friend of mine:One explanation that fits the facts is that Trump told Flynn to sweet-talk the Russians in the first place and lie to Pence about it. Trump still thinks he's conning other grifters in the real estate game. But this ain't real estate or reality TV, and his sheer ignorance is already catching up with him. Maybe they both assumed that if push came to shove, Pence could be rolled.
Another very intriguing aspect to this is that it was only made public because of the efforts of Acting AG Sally Yates. Now that Nathan Bedford Forest is the AG, we have to assume that cover up of misdeeds is going to be the default. Is there any way Trump supports an independent investigator to investigate his own direction to Flynn to give Putin a back massage and lie to the VP?