Flynn’s flimflam

If the Senate Intelligence Committee is serious about getting to the truth as it investigates Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, it must hold former national security adviser Michael Flynn in contempt of Congress for failing to produce subpoenaed documents. Blink and fail to take that step against the man at the center of the probe, and the committee will send a pitiful and partisan signal that witnesses can disregard its authority with impunity.

Monday, Flynn’s attorneys, citing an “escalating public frenzy” against their client, declined a committee request to provide a list of meetings between him and Russian officials and records of all communications related to Russia between him and the Trump campaign.

It is constitutionally permissible for a witness who fears self-incrimination to invoke his or her Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to testify.

But Flynn here is arguing that the very act of producing documents — in this case, a narrowly drawn set of documents directly related to the probe at hand — is itself equivalent to testifying.

That is a thumb in the eye of the chief oversight body, and it cannot go unanswered.

The refusal is especially egregious in light of new allegations from House Democrats that Flynn lied to executive-branch investigators who, in 2016, interviewed him as part of his security clearance renewal.

To wit: Flynn reportedly told security clearance investigators that “U.S. companies” footed the bill for his December 2015 trip to Moscow. In fact, the junket was on the dime of RT, the Russian government’s media company.

And, according to those investigators, Flynn denied receiving “any benefit from a foreign country” — an assertion that contradicts documents that show RT paid him directly.

That “escalating public frenzy” Flynn’s lawyers use as an excuse for their client to defy Congress is otherwise known as legitimate scrutiny of a man whose serial evasions and deceptions have created a nearly impenetrable fog.