- Several of Trump’s people, one of them being Mike Flynn but he was not the only one, were communicating with the Russians at least a year before the election, while the Russians were hacking the DNC. And they talked to the Russians about getting rid of sanctions on them after the election too. Flynn was warned by Trump’s transition team, a month before Flynn was recorded discussing US sanctions against Russia, about the risks of his contacts with the Russian Ambassador. Flynn was told during a meeting that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak’s conversations were almost certainly being monitored by US intelligence agencies.
Trump’s people were so concerned that Flynn did not fully understand the motives of the Russian Ambassador that the head of Trump’s National Security Council transition team asked the Obama administration for a classified CIA profile of Kislyak. The document was delivered within days but it is not clear whether Flynn ever read it. The Obama White House grew deeply distrustful of Trump’s dealing with the Kremlin and anxious about his team’s ties. The concern, compounded by surges of new intelligence, including evidence of multiple calls, texts and at least one in-person meeting between Flynn and Kislyak, eventually grew so great that as the Obama White House prepared to levy sanctions and oust Russians living in the in the US in retaliation for the hacks Obama officials did not brief the Trump team on the decision and delayed telling Trump’s team about plans to punish Russia for its election meddling until shortly before it was announced publicly. The timing was chosen in part because they feared the transition team might give Moscow lead time to clear information out of the two compounds the US was shuttering, Obama officials worried Trump’s incoming administration might tip off Moscow. President Barack Obama said December 29th that the compounds were being “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes” and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian “intelligence operatives.” And Mr. Obama was right to worry about the Trump administration because May 31st 2017 the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia the two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. So on top of everything else Trump wants to reward the Russians (that must have been just part of the deal Trump made with the Russians).
Trump lied and claimed that Mike Flynn lied about all this and Trump is still lying about it. This is illegal, criminal acts, it’s collusion and the attempt to cover it up afterwards is obstruction of justice, some people consider it treason, but whether it is treason or not some people want Trump impeached.
- Mr. Obama himself warned Trump, less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office, against hiring Flynn as his National Security Adviser. Sally Yates, the former acting Attorney General before Jeff Sessions was confirmed, that Trump claimed he fired for refusing to defend his illegal travel ban, had warned Trump’s transition team about Mike Flynn and his Russian connections almost 3 weeks before it became public. But Trump did nothing to Flynn before the situation became public, almost 3 weeks later, what Trump did was fire Sally Yates just days after she tried to warn Trump.
- So when it became public that Mike Flynn was communicating with the Russians Flynn resigned but he was just a scapegoat, a fall guy, for Trump and Vice President Pence because Trump and Pence already knew about it at least as early as January 4th 2017 (and possibly even earlier than the date reported) but it didn’t bother Trump until it was public.
And when it became public the lie was that Flynn had lied to Pence because Pence was on TV saying that Flynn had no communications with the Russians so they were trying to make it look like Pence didn’t lie but rather that Pence had been lied to by Flynn.
- On May 18th 2017 Reuters reported that Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 previously undisclosed calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 Presidential race. And the false denials from Mike Pence continue to stack up. Rachel Maddow looks at the many times Mike Pence has denied something about the Trump team only to be proven wrong by further reporting. Apparently Pence knows everything but wants to claim that he knows nothing.
Mike Flynn had also received money from the Russians. Senior officials across the government became convinced in January that the incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had become vulnerable to Russian blackmail. At the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies, career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem. Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new CIA director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence, with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether CIA officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president. The episode highlights a remarkable aspect of Mr. Flynn’s tumultuous, 25-day tenure in the White House: He sat atop a national security apparatus that churned ahead despite its own conclusion that he was at risk of being compromised by a hostile foreign power.
- And Flynn was also working for the government of Turkey, he lobbied for Turkey’s interests, at the time of Trump’s transition and sitting in on top secret national security meetings (and that is important because he could have given some of that high security information to Turkey to use against the US).
- Trump and his people said that the transition team knew about Flynn working for Turkey but Vice President Pence was the head of the transition team and he claimed that he didn’t know about Flynn working for Turkey. That doesn’t even make any sense how can the transition team know about something but the head of that transition team doesn’t know about that same something that everybody else in the team knows about?
So Pence is obviously lying about that too but they need to get their stories straight, pick a lie and stick to it. Pence is lying to the point that on June 15th 2017 the Washington Post reported that Pence lawyered up, Vice President Pence has hired outside legal counsel to help with both congressional committee inquiries and the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia. The vice president’s office said June 15th that Pence has retained Richard Cullen, a Richmond-based lawyer and chairman of McGuireWoods who previously served as a US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.
On The Rachel Maddow Show Rachel Maddow follows up on previous reporting on the possibility that Mike Pence would use PAC money to pay for his legal defense noting that absent that he could also use Trump/Pence campaign money.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell The New York Times reports that Vice President Mike Pence and other Republicans appear to be eyeing a run for president in 2020. The Trump White House is pushing back, but Lawrence O’Donnell says it’s obvious — and it’s not just because of Mueller’s Russia probe.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams Vice President Pence is denying reports he’s reading for a possible 2020 run should Trump decide not to run. But why does he have a PAC & why is he raising his own cash? Our panel reacts.
- And, like everything else surrounding Trump links back to Russia, it turns out that Flynn’s lobbying for Turkey links back to Russia too. May 19th 2017 CNN even reported that Russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they had cultivated a strong relationship with former Trump adviser retired General Michael Flynn and believed they could use him to influence Donald Trump and his team.
- Since Flynn was a retired military General he was specifically warned in 2014 by the Pentagon not to take any foreign money from any foreign governments without advance permission. Flynn did not get any permission so Flynn is now also under investigation by the Pentagon for possibly breaking the law with that. Flynn also may have broke the law last year by making false statements during a background-check interview for his top-secret security clearance. Lying to federal investigators during a background check can be a felony under federal law.
On The Rachel Maddow Show Congressman Eric Swalwell talks with Joy-Ann Reid about the House Intelligence Committee’s perspective on the Trump Russia investigation and whether the repeated updates and amendments by Michael Flynn undermine his credibility.
- June 29th 2017 The WSJ reported a Republican operative named Peter W. Smith sought out Clinton campaign emails from hackers before the 2016 presidential election, and said he was discussing the matter with Michael Flynn, the Wall St Journal reports. Flynn at the time was serving as an advisor to then-candidate Trump. The WSJ reports Smith and his colleagues considered Flynn and his consulting company “allies in their quest.” Eric York, a computer security expert who searched on behalf of Smith for people who had access to the hacked emails told the Journal Smith said, “‘I’m talking to Michael Flynn about this — if you find anything, can you let me know?'” The Russia connection: Smith said he and his colleagues found two of the five hackers claiming to have Clinton’s emails were Russians. Flynn did not respond to requests for comment. A Trump campaign official said Smith didn’t work for the campaign and that if Flynn coordinated with Smith on the matter, it would have been as a private citizen. Smith died May 14, ten days after the WSJ interviewed him.
On All In with Chris Hayes The Wall Street Journal reports that GOP operative Peter Smith sought stolen Clinton emails from Russian hackers – and intimated he was working with Michael Flynn.
On The Rachel Maddow Show Matthew Miller, former chief spokesman for the Justice Department, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump allies going on offense to discredit the FBI officials and the Trump Russia investigation.
The Wall Street Journal added to their June 29th reporting on June 30th 2017, a Republican activist who sought last year to obtain Hillary Clinton’s personal emails that had been deleted from a private email server had included the names of top Trump campaign officials in a recruiting document, The Wall Street Journal reported June 30th 2017. Among those listed in the document are now-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, now-counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway, now-Agriculture Department policy adviser Sam Clovis and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The document is dated Sept. 7, 2016, according to the Journal. Around that time, GOP activist Peter Smith began assembling a team of lawyers, tech experts and Russian-speaking investigators to obtain 33,000 of Clinton’s private emails that he believed had been stolen by hackers. Smith, who died last month shortly after speaking with the newspaper, said that his operation was not tied to the Trump campaign, and the recruiting document does not suggest that he was coordinating with campaign officials. It is not clear why the former campaign officials were listed in the document.
Smith told the Journal that his operation had been in contact with several hacker groups, including two that he had suspected of being tied to the Russian government. Smith believed that the deleted Clinton emails could have been obtained by hackers and might have included politically damaging information. The Journal reported this week that US investigators have examined intelligence reports indicating that Russian hackers discussed how to obtain Clinton’s emails and pass them to Flynn through an intermediary. That intelligence was collected around the same time that Smith’s group was operating, though it isn’t clear who the intermediary in question was. A special counsel and multiple congressional committees are investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election, as well as possible ties between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
On All In with Chris Hayes Trump wanted Hillary Clinton’s emails. He thought Russia had them. And he knew Michael Flynn had connections. Rachel Maddow joins to discuss the new reporting on Trump campaign contacts with Russia.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell The GOP operative who sought to obtain hacked Clinton emails from Russians cited Kellyanne Conway and Steve Bannon in a document uncovered by The Wall Street Journal. Malcolm Nance and Naveed Jamali join Ari Melber with reaction to the report.
- Congressional investigators wanted Sally Yates to testify in it’s Russian investigation, Trump tried to block that in a cover-up effort. But Sally Yates did testify anyway on 5/8/17.
- Mike Flynn offered to testify for the Senate Intelligence Committee if he gets immunity from prosecution. The immunity was denied, at the time it was too early in the investigation for immunity, still I had hoped to hear Flynn testify. But then news came out that without immunity Flynn would refuse to comply with a Congressional subpoena for documents in his possession that might relate to the Senate intelligence committee’s investigation into Russia’s interference with the 2016 election and invoke the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
The top two leaders of the Senate intelligence committee are leaving the door open to holding Michael Flynn in contempt of Congress, the panel was reviewing a range of options to compel Flynn to disclose records about his meetings with Russian officials, including holding Flynn in contempt. “It does us no good in having people pleading the Fifth if we are trying to get information,” Senator Richard Burr said. He added: “The only thing I can tell you is immunity is off the table.”
So the Senate Intelligence Committee said that they plan to subpoena 2 of former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s companies to get the documents he has declined to provide for their Russia probe since the businesses can’t invoke a Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
- August 4th 2017 as reported in The New York Times: Investigators working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, recently asked the White House for documents related to the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, and have questioned witnesses about whether he was secretly paid by the Turkish government during the final months of the presidential campaign, according to people close to the investigation. Though not a formal subpoena, the document request is the first known instance of Mr. Mueller’s team asking the White House to hand over records.
In interviews with potential witnesses in recent weeks, prosecutors and F.B.I. agents have spent hours poring over the details of Mr. Flynn’s business dealings with a Turkish-American businessman who worked last year with Mr. Flynn and his consulting business, the Flynn Intel Group. The company was paid $530,000 to run a campaign to discredit an opponent of the Turkish government who has been accused of orchestrating last year’s failed coup in the country. Investigators want to know if the Turkish government was behind those payments — and if the Flynn Intel Group made kickbacks to the businessman, Ekim Alptekin, for helping conceal the source of the money.
The line of questioning shows that Mr. Mueller’s inquiry has expanded into a full-fledged examination of Mr. Flynn’s financial dealings, beyond the relatively narrow question of whether he failed to register as a foreign agent or lied about his conversations and business arrangements with Russian officials.
Mr. Flynn lasted only 24 days as national security adviser, but his legal troubles now lie at the center of a political storm that has engulfed the Trump administration. For months, prosecutors have used multiple grand juries to issue subpoenas for documents related to Mr. Flynn.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell A new report says Robert Mueller has now asked the White House for documents related to Michael Flynn’s business practices, a first for the probe, and investigators are interviewing witnesses. Walter Dellinger, Samuel Buell, and Michael Isikoff join Ari Melber.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams Report: Special Counsel seeks White House documents on Flynn. Shannon Pettypiece, Steve Kornacki and Robert Traynham discuss the new report from the New York Times and the opportunity for the White House to regroup around the president’s vacation.
On The Rachel Maddow Show Michael Schmidt, Washington correspondent for The New York Times, talks with Joy-Ann Reid about Special Counsel Robert Mueller requesting documents on Mike Flynn from the White House.
