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Michael Flynn Under Defense Dept. Investigation Over Foreign Payment Pentagon Inquiry Seeks to Learn if Flynn Hid Foreign Payment
(about 11 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser, is under investigation by the Defense Department’s inspector general to determine whether he failed to get permission to receive payment from a foreign government, as he was explicitly told to do, according to documents released on Thursday by the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. WASHINGTON — Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, was explicitly told in 2014 to seek approval for any payments he accepted from a foreign government, documents released on Thursday show.
The Democrat, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, also released a letter showing that Mr. Flynn had been warned not to accept compensation from foreign governments without prior approval. But a year later, he was paid $45,000 by a Kremlin-backed news organization to give a speech in Moscow, an arrangement lawmakers say he failed to disclose the next month when he submitted paperwork to renew his security clearance.
That letter, sent to Mr. Flynn around the time he left his earlier post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was dated October 2014 — more than a year before Mr. Flynn received a $45,000 speaking fee from RT, the Kremlin-backed news network. The disclosure on Thursday also included a letter showing that the Defense Department’s inspector general opened an investigation this spring into whether Mr. Flynn failed to properly report a payment from a foreign government.
Mr. Cummings slammed White House officials for declining to release to the committee internal documents related to Mr. Flynn after requests from both Republicans and Democrats. White House officials argued that they did not have all the documents, and that those they did have were too sensitive and irrelevant to congressional investigators. As a retired military intelligence officer, Mr. Flynn was required to vet all foreign payments with the Pentagon and the State Department, according to an October 2014 letter that was released as lawmakers investigate allegations of ties between President Trump’s associates and the Russian government.
“I honestly don’t understand why the White House is covering up for Michael Flynn,” Mr. Cummings told reporters. The April 11 letter from the inspector general did not specify what payment from a foreign government was at issue. But Mr. Flynn is known to have been paid more than $45,000 by RT, the Kremlin-financed news network, to give a speech in Moscow in December 2015.
He added that if White House officials did not provide the documents, they would need to be subpoenaed — a move Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the committee’s Republican chairman, on Tuesday said he believed was unnecessary. More than two months after Mr. Flynn was fired as national security adviser, his links to Moscow continue to bedevil the Trump administration, which itself has been dogged by reports of ties between Russian officials and the president’s associates. The Senate and House Intelligence Committees and the F.B.I. are investigating allegations that Mr. Trump’s associates colluded with Russia before and after last year’s presidential election.
Mr. Cummings also said on Thursday that he disagreed with Mr. Chaffetz’s decision not to call Mr. Flynn before their committee, and to defer to the investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee. Mr. Flynn, an unconventional and often contentious former three-star Army general, is at the center of the inquiries. Apart from the paid speech in Moscow — a trip during which he was photographed dining at the elbow of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — there are questions about conversations he had last year with the Russian ambassador to the United States. He was fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials about those conversations.
Democrats decided to release the documents on Thursday without Mr. Chaffetz’s approval, according to a Republican committee aide. Mr. Chaffetz announced late Wednesday that he would be away for a few weeks recovering from a medical emergency. It is not clear whether Mr. Flynn is cooperating with any of the investigations. But last month, he offered to sit down with congressional investigators in exchange for immunity, a deal that lawmakers say was declined, at least for now.
Jennifer Werner, Mr. Cummings’s spokeswoman, said both parties had worked together and with the Pentagon to prepare unclassified documents to release to the public. She said they informed Mr. Chaffetz of the pending release Thursday morning. The White House has so far declined requests from both congressional Republicans and Democrats to provide the House Oversight Committee with internal documents related to Mr. Flynn.
Mr. Flynn, an unconventional and often contentious former three-star Army general, has become an increasingly problematic figure for the White House as revelations about his ties abroad continue to mount. He served in the administration for less than a month before being forced out for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contact with the Russian ambassador. White House officials argued that they did not have all the documents, and that those they did have were too sensitive and were irrelevant to congressional investigators.
On Tuesday, Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Cummings announced it was likely that Mr. Flynn violated federal law by failing to fully disclose his business dealings with Russia, an assertion they made after viewing classified documents that included a form seeking to renew his security clearance in January 2016. “I honestly don’t understand why the White House is covering up for Michael Flynn,” Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House panel, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Mr. Cummings also distributed an unclassified version of a document that prompted their Tuesday announcement, a letter from the Defense Intelligence Agency informing lawmakers that Mr. Flynn neither sought approval nor reported income from a foreign source. This letter, he said, contradicts the assertion from Mr. Flynn’s lawyer that he consulted with the agency about his trip to Moscow. Mr. Cummings released both the Pentagon inspector general’s letter to the committee and the October 2014 letter from the Pentagon instructing Mr. Flynn to seek approval before taking any payments from a foreign government.
Mr. Flynn’s dealings in question included the $45,000 from RT for his 2015 speech, which lawmakers said he did not include on the form. He was photographed on that trip seated beside President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a gala. Democrats decided to release the documents on Thursday without approval from Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the committee’s Republican chairman, according to a House aide. Mr. Cummings also chastised Mr. Chaffetz for his decision not to demand that Mr. Flynn appear before the committee for questioning, a move the chairman said was unnecessary because of a parallel investigation by the House Intelligence Committee.
Mr. Chaffetz announced late Wednesday that he would be away from Washington for a few weeks, recovering from a medical emergency.
Bruce Anderson, a spokesman for the Defense Department’s inspector general, said on Thursday that the office had opened its own investigation on April 4. In February, The New York Times reported that the Army was looking into whether Mr. Flynn had received money for his speech in Moscow around the time he left the Trump administration.
Mr. Chaffetz and Mr. Cummings announced this week that it was likely that Mr. Flynn had violated federal law by failing to fully disclose his business dealings with Russia. They made that assertion after viewing classified documents that included a form seeking to renew his security clearance in January 2016.
Mr. Cummings also distributed an unclassified version of a document that had prompted his joint announcement with Mr. Chaffetz: a letter dated April 7 from the Defense Intelligence Agency informing lawmakers that Mr. Flynn neither sought approval nor reported income from a foreign source. That letter, Mr. Cummings said, contradicts a claim by Mr. Flynn’s lawyer that the general consulted with the agency about his trip to Moscow.
The lawyer, Robert Kelner, said on Thursday that a partly redacted section of the April 7 letter confirmed that Mr. Flynn had given the D.I.A. information about his speech in Moscow. That section of the letter refers briefly to information Mr. Flynn provided to Pentagon officials on a thumb drive, but does not appear to challenge the agency’s findings that Mr. Flynn did not report receiving money from the Russian government.
According to the Defense Department letter cautioning Mr. Flynn to seek permission before accepting payments from foreign governments, the penalty for failing to do so is the suspension of one’s military retirement pay.
The penalty for “knowingly falsifying or concealing” information on the form Mr. Flynn filled out to renew his security clearance, apparently without disclosing his speaking fee from RT, is fines and up to five years in prison.
The latest development fueled questions about how thoroughly the Trump administration had vetted Mr. Flynn before he was named national security adviser. Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, sought on Thursday to deflect blame to the Obama administration, claiming that officials had full knowledge of Mr. Flynn’s trip to Moscow when his security clearance was issued. That directly contradicted the D.I.A., which said it had no record of Mr. Flynn’s reporting details of his compensation there.
Mr. Flynn’s most recent clearance was issued last year, when President Barack Obama was still in office. But security clearances are issued by the Defense Department, not the White House, and are not subject to direct political oversight.
After being forced out of the Trump administration, Mr. Flynn belatedly filed paperwork as a foreign agent for his work lobbying on behalf of Turkey’s interests in the United States. He had been hired by a firm owned by a Turkish-American businessman with ties to the Turkish government. The firm paid him more than $500,000.After being forced out of the Trump administration, Mr. Flynn belatedly filed paperwork as a foreign agent for his work lobbying on behalf of Turkey’s interests in the United States. He had been hired by a firm owned by a Turkish-American businessman with ties to the Turkish government. The firm paid him more than $500,000.
Mr. Flynn has proposed being interviewed by congressional investigators examining Russian interference in the 2016 election in exchange for immunity, an offer lawmakers have not yet chosen to accept.