The House Oversight Committee sent a letter to the White House requesting documents about Michael Flynn.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent a request last month to the White House and federal agencies seeking the security clearance applications. Cummings said the White House declined in a letter to provide requested information about Flynn to the Oversight panel.
What they got back wasn’t documents, but a letter.
The White House declined Tuesday to provide documents related to President Donald Trump's former national security adviser that the panel investigating Michael Flynn had requested, according to a letter obtained by CNN.
The letter, from White House Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short, breaks its refusal into three areas: Go ask someone else, you don’t need to know, and we’re not going to tell. Specifically, Short says the House should check with the Defense Department when it comes to Flynn’s clearance, denies that the White House has any documentation on Flynn before Inauguration Day, and says that the House doesn’t need to know what Flynn was doing after Inauguration Day.
Many, if not all, documents related to such contacts are likely to contain classified, sensitive, and/or confidential information. Moreover, it is unclear how such documents would be relevant to the stated purpose of the Committee’s review...
That purpose is to review not just Flynn’s foreign connections, but the payments he received. Including payments from Russia that Flynn failed to report when seeking security clearance.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did not disclose payments for a 2015 speech in Moscow in his security clearance application for 2016, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee told reporters Tuesday.
The White House is giving the House Oversight Committee nothing when it comes to what Flynn provided when applying for security clearance. It’s giving them nothing on what Flynn did before becoming National Security Advisor. It’s giving them nothing when it comes to what Flynn did after becoming National Security Advisor.
It’s giving them nothing on Michael Flynn. Which is … interesting.
And could get even more interesting when former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies in a public hearing before the Senate on May 8.