House Dems question Flynn’s disclosures of Middle East travel
WASHINGTON » Two top House Democrats are questioning whether Michael Flynn failed to report a 2015 trip to the Middle East to federal security clearance investigators, a potential omission that could add to the legal jeopardy President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser faces over the truthfulness of his statements to authorities and on government documents.
The lawmakers — Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Rep. Eliot Engel, DN.Y. — said in a letter released Monday that they believe Flynn may have violated federal law by failing to disclose the trip and any foreign contacts he had during another 2015 trip to the Middle East, which they believe involved a proposal to develop nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia.
The letter from Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, and Engel, the ranking Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, is the latest to call attention to potential problems with what Flynn reported to the U.S. government about his foreign travel, contacts and business after he left the Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2014.
Federal and congressional probes have been looking closely at Flynn’s foreign travel and contacts as part of investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any possible collusion with associates of Trump or his campaign.
Separately, federal investigators have been scrutinizing Flynn’s work for a Turkish businessman and the Defense Department’s inspector general has been looking into whether Flynn failed to get U.S. government permission to receive foreign payments. Among those payments was more than $33,000 he received from RT, the Russian statesponsored television network that U.S. intelligence officials have branded as a propaganda arm of the Kremlin. Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, declined to comment on the allegations in the letter.
In their letter, Cummings and Engel said they believe Flynn was not forthcoming about a trip he took to the Middle East in the summer of 2015.
They cited a recent Newsweek report that Flynn flew to Israel and Egypt that summer as part of an effort promoting a U.S.-Russian partnership to construct nuclear reactors for civilian power needs. They also point to an inconsistency in what Flynn said during June 10, 2015, testimony before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee and what Flynn later reported to security clearance investigators about his foreign travel.