Senior members of Congress on the House Oversight Committee say classified military documents show the Trump administration's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, did not ask permission or inform the USA government about payments he received for appearances before Russian organisations in 2015 and for lobbying that helped Turkey's government.
Yesterday, committee Chairman U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and ranking member U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) told reporters that Flynn's failure to disclose contacts and payments, including $33,000 from Russian propaganda network Russia Today, on his security clearance forms, likely ran afoul of a law that carries criminal penalties, including potential jail time.
Flynn, a former United States military intelligence chief who was a close advisor to Trump during last year's campaign, was paid more than US$33,000 (RM144,259.50) to attend an RT gala in December 2015, where he sat at a table with President Vladimir Putin.
Whether Flynn properly disclosed payments from foreign governments on his security clearance application was the subject of the House oversight committee meeting Tuesday, as members reviewed the first batch of documents related to the investigation coming from the Pentagon.
"I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law", Chaffetz said, referring to whether Flynn received permission from the Pentagon or the State Department or that he disclosed the more than $45,000 he was paid for a speech he gave to RT-TV in Russian Federation. "And there are repercussions for the violation of law".
Flynn was forced to step down as Trump's national security advisor less than a month into the job for failing to disclose private conversations he had held with Russia's USA ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December following the election.
Trump regularly decries the alleged Russian ties to his campaign as "fake news", but the best way to prove that there is no "there" there is to fully and totally cooperate with the investigation.
Cummings said they could not discuss the contents of the classified documents they saw.
"There was nothing in the data to show that Gen. Flynn complied with the law", Chaffetz said.
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She had been scheduled to testify weeks ago before the House intelligence committee, but that hearing was canceled.
Although Cummings said that he would like to see Flynn appear before the committee, Chaffetz said it is highly doubtful.
Earlier on Tuesday the White House's director of legislative affairs, Marc Short, wrote in a letter to the House Oversight Committee, "We are unable to accommodate" numerous requests, adding that the White House does not have numerous documents in its possession.
As part of our investigation, Chairman Chaffetz and I sent a bipartisan request to Reince Priebus, the White House Chief of Staff, requesting a wide range of documents, including any, "referring or relating to Lt".
The House Oversight Committee requested information in relation to Flynn from the Trump administration, but were denied.
Asked whether Flynn had broken the law, Spicer said, "that's a question for him".
When a lawyer for Mike Flynn announced at the end of last month that the former national security adviser "has a story to tell" in exchange for immunity from prosecution, the news generated a minor media frenzy.
Added Chaffetz: "This is something General Flynn was supposed to do as a former officer". The work was conducted in the summer and fall of 2016, when Flynn was also an adviser to the Trump campaign. "General Flynn received money through an entity that was from the Russians". "But we can say this: They are extremely troubling", he said.
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