New Documents From Flynn’s Business Colleagues Confirm Middle East Trip and Foreign Contacts That He Withheld From Security Clearance Investigators—A Potential Crime

Sep 13, 2017
Press Release

New Documents From Flynn’s Business Colleagues Confirm

Middle East Trip and Foreign Contacts That He Withheld From

Security Clearance Investigators—A Potential Crime

 

New Letter from Cummings and Engel Seeks Info on Whether

Flynn Secretly Worked from Inside the White House on Scheme to

Partner with Russia to Build Nuclear Reactors in Saudi Arabia

 

Washington, D.C. (Sept. 13, 2017)—Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Rep. Eliot L. Engel, the Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, sent a letter releasing multiple responses from business colleagues of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn confirming that he traveled to the Middle East in 2015 to meet with foreign leaders about a proposal to partner with Russia in a scheme to build nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia—information that he omitted from his security clearance renewal application in 2016 and concealed from background check investigators who interviewed him during that process.

“Based on your responses, it appears that General Flynn violated federal law by omitting this trip and these foreign contacts from his security clearance renewal application in 2016 and concealing them from security clearance investigators who interviewed him as part of the background check process,” Cummings and Engel wrote to Flynn’s former business partners.  “Since these violations carry criminal penalties of up to five years in prison, we are providing your responses to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.”

General Flynn’s business colleagues made these disclosures in response to a letter sent by Cummings and Engel on June 19, 2017, seeking information about a Newsweek report alleging that Flynn traveled to Egypt and Israel in 2015 to promote the deal.

In addition, Cummings and Engel raised new questions about whether Flynn secretly used his position inside the White House as National Security Advisor to continue working on this nuclear deal with Russia and Saudi Arabia, without disclosing his previous trip and foreign contacts.

“Your responses raise significant questions about whether General Flynn continued to communicate with you and others about this project after the presidential election, after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, and after General Flynn assumed the post of National Security Advisor—without disclosing his foreign travel or contacts,” Cummings and Engel wrote.  “The American people deserve to know whether General Flynn was secretly promoting the private interests of these businesses while he was a campaign advisor, a transition official, or President Trump’s National Security Advisor.”

In their letter, Cummings and Engel asked the companies to provide documents about the specific foreign officials and foreign businesses General Flynn communicated with before, during, or after his 2015 trip, as well as all communications the companies had with General Flynn after Election Day, after Inauguration Day, and after General Flynn became National Security Advisor. 

Cummings and Engel also requested transcribed interviews with General Flynn and the heads of the companies.

 

Click here to read the letter released today.

115th Congress