Michael Flynn may no longer be sitting on top of the nation’s intelligence community, but that doesn’t mean his influence has vanished. Ezra Cohen, the intelligence analyst who slipped Devin Nunes the “unmasking” story and derailed the House Intelligence Committee investigation of Trump–Russia, was one of those who followed Flynn into the Trump regime. Even though experienced intelligence officers wanted Cohen out of there, Donald Trump intervened to keep in place—just in time for Cohen to act as a source for Nunes. And while the information that caused Nunes to launch a series of press conferences and a White House briefing turned out to be nothing out of the ordinary, it did scrub a series of public hearings. Including one that was to include testimony on … Michael Flynn.
But Cohen isn’t the only Flynn protege that seems to have a connection to Trump.
Jon Iadonisi, a friend and business associate of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, had two under-the-radar projects underway in the fall of 2016.
One of his companies was helping Flynn with an investigative effort for an ally of the Turkish government — details of which Flynn revealed only after he was forced to step down from his White House post.
At the same time, Iadonisi was also doing work for the Trump campaign, although his role was not publicly reported, according to people familiar with his involvement.
What was Iadonisi doing for Trump? That’s more than a little unclear. Payments to Iadonisi followed a circuitous route through two other firms, and Iadonisi didn’t appear on campaign finance reports. It appears that Flynn’s friend was involved in social media work, but what Trump bought for his $200,000 or why that money passed through a venture capital firm to reach Iadonisi is a mystery.
Iadonisi’s past work has included some ventures that seems fairly innocuous, such as determining which social media sources are most effective, but he’s also contracted with the Pentagon for work that included uses of the dark web. Where his work for Trump falls on that spectrum hasn’t been made public.
Iadonisi, who worked with the CIA as a Navy SEAL, according to an online biography, has close ties to Flynn …
Until recently, Iadonisi and Flynn’s firms shared an office suite in Alexandria, Va. Flynn’s now-closed consultancy, Flynn Intel Group, rented space from White Canvas Group, according to a person familiar with the arrangement.
There’s no doubt that the Trump campaign was shopping for a lot of online help, and Iadonisi’s work could have been perfectly ordinary. It’s also not unusual for services to be subcontracted in the middle of a campaign.
But in a campaign where fake news spread through social media played a major role, it’s certainly interesting that Donald Trump was paying a friend of Michael Flynn who is an expert in the area.