Tactic of the Day: In a coverup, answer a Question that was not asked

From the White House briefing today:
Jonathan Karl's question and Sean Spicer's answer today. Karl asks about Flynn contacts with the Russians before the election, quite clearly, but Spicer pivots to talk only about the time after the election - because he does not want to address the period of the campaign contacts with Russia. Then, upon followup, Spicer garbles his gobbedlygook into a nonsense answer that was left unchallenged. The clear implication is that no one at the White House wants to talk about their contacts with Russia during the campaign.

"Q Back in January, the President said that nobody in his campaign had been in touch with the Russians. Now, today, can you still say definitively that nobody on the Trump campaign, not even General Flynn, had any contact with the Russians before the election?

MR. SPICER: My understanding is that what General Flynn has now expressed is that during the transition period -- well, we were very clear that during the transition period, he did speak with the ambassador --

Q I’m talking about during the campaign.

MR. SPICER: I don’t have any -- there’s nothing that would conclude me -- that anything different has changed with respect to that time period."

What is that supposed to mean? It was a Yes or No question.