B. Part 1: The President’s Conduct re: Michael Flynn investigation. (Vol. 2, P. 286/24 Obstruction)
Overview - During the Presidential transition prior to inauguration, incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had two phone calls with the Russian Ambassador to the United States (Kislyak) about the Russian response to US sanctions imposed because of Russia’s election interference. After the press reported on Flynn’s contact with the Russian Ambassador, Flynn lied to incoming Administration officials saying he had not discussed sanctions on the calls. The officials publicly repeated those lies in press interviews. The FBI, which had been investigating Flynn for other matters previously, interviewed him about the calls in the first week after the inauguration and Flynn told similar lies to the FBI. On January 26, 2017 Department of Justice (DO) officials notified the White House that Flynn and the Russian Ambassador had indeed discussed sanctions and that Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI. The next night, the President had a private dinner with FBI Director James Comey in which he asked for Comey’s loyalty. The president asked Flynn to resign. The following day Trump had a one-on-one conversation with Comey in which he said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.”
December 29, 2016 – Obama announces sanctions imposed on several Russian individuals and business entities owned by those individuals for meddling in US elections. These sanctions were aimed directly at Russian Oligarchs and their business dealings as a warning for having interfered in our elections.
December 29, 2016 – members of the transition team emailed each other about those sanctions and the impact they would have on the incoming administration. Flynn (National Security Advisor) was in the Dominican Republic at the time. McFarland (slated to be the Deputy National Security Advisor) was at Mar-a-Lago in Florida with Trump and senior staff. They talked by phone as to what if anything Flynn should say to Kislyak about Sanctions. MacFarland reported to Flynn from Mar-a-Lago that Administration officials did not want Russia to escalate the situation and MacFarland confirmed by email to all involved that Flynn would be talking to the Ambassador that day. Flynn informed members of the transition team he would be speaking to the Russian Ambassador that day. Reince Priebus recalled McFarland may have mentioned the sanction situation could be cooled down and not escalated. Priebus recalled that the President-elect viewed the sanctions as an attempt by the Obama Administration to embarrass him by delegitimizing his election.
December 29, 2016 – Flynn calls Ambassador Kislyak asking Russia respond to sanctions only in a reciprocal manner without any escalation of the situation. Flynn then called McFarland of the conversation saying Russia would not escalate the situation because “Russia wanted a good relationship with the Trump Administration.”
December 30, 2016 – Vladimir Putin announces that Russia would not take retaliatory measures. Trump tweets, “Great move on delay by V. Putin – I always knew he was very smart.”
December 31, 2016 - Ambassador Kislyak calls Flynn telling him Flynn’s request had been received at the highest levels and Russia had chosen not to retaliate in response to the request.” Flynn tells McFarland about the follow up with Kislyak. Flynn thought his phone call had made the difference. Flynn spoke with other incoming Administrative officials that day, but does not recall whether they discussed sanctions.
January 3, 2017 – President-elect Trump met Flynn in person and discussed the Russian reaction to the Obama sanctions, but Flynn did not have a specific recollection of telling the President the substance of his calls with Ambassador Kislyak.
January 6, 2017 – FBI intelligence briefing held where President -Elect Trump and incoming administration informed of FBI’s assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election. After the briefing, Comey spoke with the President-Elect alone to brief him on an unverified, personally sensitive allegations compiled by a former British intelligence office in what became known as the Steele Dossier. The President to the information of the Steele Dossier in defensive fashion so Comey decided to assure the president at that he was not being investigated personally. Comey drafted a memo for the record to “memorialize” the conversation. President said Comey had conducted himself honorably over the prior year, looked forward to working with him, hoped he planned to stay on as FBI director.
January 10, 2017 – Press reports Comey had briefed the President-elect on the Steele reporting. BuzzFeed News published information compiled by Steele online stating the information included “specific, unverified and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives.”
January 11, 2017 – Trump expressed concern to the intelligence community leaders about the fact that the information had leaked and asked whether they could make a public statement refuting the allegations in the Steele reports.
January 12, 2017 – Washington Post reports Flynn and Kislyak communicated on the day Obama announced Russian sanctions. Article wondered if Flynn had said something to “undercut the U.S. sanctions” and whether Flynn had violated the letter or Spirit of the Logan Act. The Logan Act is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. The intent behind the Act is to prevent unauthorized negotiations from undermining the government's position.
Trump called Priebus after the WAPO article published and was angry. He said, “what the hell is this all about?”. Priebus called Flynn saying the President-Elect was angry about the newspaper story. Flynn felt pressure when Priebus called as he had just spoken to the “boss” (Trump) and the boss wanted Flynn to “kill the story.” Flynn in turn called McFarland asking her to call the Washington Post columnist to say, “no discussion of sanctions had occurred.” McFarland recalled Flynn saying or implying he wanted to kill the story. McFarland did as requested but knew she was providing false information. The Post updated the column to say, “Trump official had denied Flynn and Kislyak discussed sanctions.”
Flynn told internal administrative officials who questioned him that he had NOT discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Flynn repeated this claim to VP-elect and to the incoming press secretary Sean Spicer.
Based on what Flynn had told them, Pence, Priebus and Spicer continued to deny the conversation between Flynn and Kislyak had included talk of Russian sanctions. These public statements alarmed the Department of Justice officials who were aware that these statements were lies.
January 13, 2017 – House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence announced it had been investigating Russian election interference and possible coordina
January 20, 2017 - PRESIDENT TRUMP INAUGURATED
(Tomorrow, Part 2 of the President’s conduct toward Michael Flynn after he’s in office)