House Dems press Flynn for information on trips

WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders are pressing former national security adviser Michael Flynn for documents and details related two trips he made to the Middle East in 2015 that they argue he failed to disclose — in part or in whole — on security clearance forms.

According to House Oversight and Government Reform committee ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., Flynn’s security forms and interviews revealed a previously unreported, six-day trip he made to Saudi Arabia in October 2015, in which he claimed to have stayed at a hotel that does not appear to exist, traveled with a friend who was never named and spoken at a conference that none of his handling bureaus were aware of.

According to congressional testimony Flynn gave in June 2015, Flynn also made an earlier trip that involved talks about developing nuclear power in the region. Flynn never documented the trip on his security clearance forms, according to Cummings and Engel.

Flynn is under scrutiny by several investigations into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 president election and any possible collusion between President Trump’s campaign and that effort.

Newsweek recently reported that Flynn had traveled to the Middle East to promote a potential U.S.-Russian venture involving those companies to develop nuclear power facilities. But Flynn’s financial disclosure forms indicate that his business affiliation with X-Co/IronBridge only began in August 2015 — two months after his initial trip — according to Cummings’s and Engel’s letter.

Flynn’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.