Let Lindsey Graham & the other republicans start an investigation on the justification to investigate Flynn.... I dare them!
New documents show Flynn told Russian ambassador not to escalate on sanctions
By Zachary Cohen, Jeremy Herb, Katelyn Polantz and Marshall Cohen, CNN
Updated 9:37 PM ET, Fri May 29, 2020
Trump pushes 'Obamagate' conspiracy based on routine intel activity
(CNN)President Donald Trump's first national security adviser Michael Flynn told the then-Russian ambassador in December 2016 that he didn't want the US and Russia to get into an escalating "tit-for-tat" after the Obama administration had enacted sanctions in December 2016, according to summaries and call transcripts declassified.
The declassified documents show that Flynn discussed in detail Russia's response to the Obama administration's sanctions, despite public denials at the time from senior Trump administration officials. Flynn later lied about discussing sanctions to the FBI, leading to his guilty plea secured by former special counsel Robert Mueller's team in 2017, which Attorney General William Barr moved to dismiss earlier this month.
The call summaries and transcripts show Flynn asked then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to "reciprocate moderately" in response to the sanctions, Flynn said on a December 29, 2016, call.
"Let's keep this at even-kill (sic) level; then when we come in, we will have a better conversation where we are going to go regarding our relationship," Flynn says, according to the documents.
In a follow-up call two days later, Kislyak told Flynn that Russia's response -- in which Russia did not escalate against the US -- was influenced by their earlier conversation.
The documents were declassified by former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell before he departed this week. Newly confirmed Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe sent them to Congress Friday, and Senate Republicans then released them publicly.
READ: Declassified summaries of Michael Flynn's calls with former Russian ambassador
Flynn's conversations with Kislyak are at the heart of the controversy surrounding Flynn's guilty plea for lying to the FBI secured by former special counsel Robert Mueller's team in 2017, which Attorney General William Barr moved to dismiss earlier this month.
The calls are central to resolving questions about Flynn's attempt to cover up what he and Kislyak discussed about a United Nations vote on Israel and Russian sanctions before Trump was in office.
They also have allowed congressional Republicans to feed into the Trump administration's recent claims that Flynn's actions during the transition weren't out of the ordinary, normalizing activity outside of formal government channels that Mueller documented as he probed the Trump team's ties to Russia.
Trump and his allies have accused the Obama administration of trying to sabotage the administration by targeting Flynn and other members of the Trump campaign team, and they have sought to undermine the Mueller investigation, which found that the campaign was receptive to Russia's interference in 2016 and that Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation several times. Flynn was forced out of the White House in 2017 after it was revealed he lied about the calls to Vice President Mike Pence and other top officials.
"Lt. General Flynn, his legal team, the judge and the American people can now see with their own eyes -- for the first time -- that all of the innuendo about Lt. General Flynn this whole time was totally bunk. There was nothing improper about his call, and the FBI knew it," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who has been asking for the Flynn-Kislyak transcripts for several years.
Barr, in discussing his department's decision to drop Flynn's case and in court, has said Flynn's lies about the calls weren't "material" to an investigation, that Flynn shouldn't have been questioned by FBI agents, and that what happened on the calls was even "laudable." The case has not yet been dismissed from court.
But House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said that the call transcripts show that Flynn lied to the FBI and explained the FBI's rationale for a counterintelligence investigation, charging that Trump and his allies were trying to "promote conspiracy theories to distract and re-write history."
"The transcripts also reveal why Flynn was properly the subject of a counterintelligence investigation and how the DOJ's effort to dismiss the case against him is so transparently political and destructive to the interests of justice," Schiff said. "As a result of lying to both the FBI and the Vice President, Flynn posed a severe counterintelligence risk because the Russians knew the real contents of Flynn's communications and that he lied about them to the some of the most senior officials in the U.S. government."
According to the transcripts, court filings from Flynn's guilty plea and the Mueller report, Flynn had asked Russia to not respond too harshly to US sanctions put in place by the Obama administration in response to Russian interference in the election. He also told the Russian ambassador the incoming Trump administration would oppose a resolution about Israeli settlements -- a stance at odds with the Obama administration. Flynn asked for Russia to vote against or delay the resolution.
At very least, the call transcripts make clear that Flynn intentionally asked Kislyak for certain foreign policy responses as the Trump transition prepared to take over relations with Russia. The directness of his requests of Russia make it unlikely Flynn would have outright forgotten during his FBI interview what had happened on the calls.
The Mueller investigation found that Flynn had made the requests at the direction of senior members of the Trump transition, who sought to undermine the approach of the sitting Obama administration and work outside of the official State Department channels.
more:
http://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/politics/flynn-kislyak-transcripts-sent-to-congress/index.html
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