Flynn under defense probe over foreign pay
WASHINGTON — Michael 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 Thursday by the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland also released a letter showing Flynn had been warned not to accept compensation from foreign governments without prior approval.
That letter, sent to Flynn when he left his earlier post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was dated October 2014 — more than a year before Flynn received a $45,000 speaking fee from RT, the Kremlin-backed news network.
Cummings slammed White House officials for declining to release to the committee internal documents related to Flynn after requests from both Republicans and Democrats. White House officials argued they did not have all the documents and that those that they did have were too sensitive, and irrelevant to congressional investigators.
“I honestly don’t understand why the White House is covering up for Michael Flynn,” Cummings told reporters.
He added that if White House officials do not provide the documents, they would need to be subpoenaed — a move Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the committee’s Republican chairman, on Tuesday said he believed was unnecessary.
Cummings also said Thursday that he disagreed with Chaffetz’s decision not to call Flynn before their committee, and to defer to the investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee.
Democrats decided to release the documents Thursday without Chaffetz’s approval, according to a Republican committee aide. Chaffetz announced late Wednesday that he would be away for a few weeks recovering from a medical emergency.
Jennifer Werner, Cummings’ spokeswoman, said both parties had worked together and with the Pentagon to prepare unclassified documents to release to the public. She said they informed Chaffetz of the pending release Thursday morning.
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.
On Tuesday, Chaffetz and Cummings announced it was likely that 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.