WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday fired one of his transition team’s staff members, Michael G. Flynn, the son of Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, for using Twitter to spread a fake news story about Hillary Clinton that led to an armed confrontation in a pizza restaurant in Washington.
The uproar over Mr. Flynn’s Twitter post cast a harsh spotlight on the views that he and his father, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, aired on social media throughout the presidential campaign. Both men have shared fake news stories alleging that Mrs. Clinton committed felonies, and have posted their own Twitter messages that at times have crossed into Islamophobia.
But their social media musings apparently attracted little attention from Mr. Trump or his transition team before a North Carolina man fired a rifle on Sunday inside Comet Ping Pong, which was the subject of false stories tying it and the Clinton campaign to a child sex trafficking ring.
Hours after the episode, the younger Mr. Flynn, 33, went on Twitter to say that until “Pizzagate” was proved false, it remained a story.
But later in the morning, Jason Miller, a transition spokesman, tacitly acknowledged that Mr. Flynn had worked for the transition, saying in a conference call that Mr. Flynn was now no longer involved.
Mr. Miller did not say what prompted the dismissal of Mr. Flynn, but two other Trump transition officials said it was tied to his Twitter posting.
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