Flynn coordinated Russia call with senior transition official, prosecutors say
The Hill ^ | December 1, 2017 | Katie Bo Williams
Posted on 12/1/2017, 12:17:26 PM by Pinkbell
Former national security advisor Michael Flynn spoke with a "senior official" in President’s Trump's transition team at the Mar-a-Lago resort to discuss what he should communicate to the Russian ambassador in a highly-scrutinized series of phone calls in December of 2016, according to federal prosecutors.
Flynn and the senior officials discussed both the recently implemented U.S. sanctions on Russia, as well as the fact that they did not want Russia to escalate friction between the two nations, lawyers on special counsel Robert Mueller's team told a federal judge Friday.
After the discussion, Flynn telephoned the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. Afterwards, he called the senior transition official and reported the sanctions discussion, prosecutors said.
Kislyak later followed up with Flynn and affirmed that Russia would moderate its response to the sanctions, put in place by then-President Obama. Flynn communicated that exchange to other transition officials, prosecutors said.
Flynn on Friday pleaded guilty to one count of providing false statements to federal investigators, thereby admitting to the charges made by Mueller's prosecutors.
According to court documents filed by Mueller, Flynn lied when he told investigators that he did not ask Kislyak to "refrain from escalating the situation" in response to sanctions that Obama had levied on the Russian Federation.
Flynn also lied, the counsel said, when Flynn said he did not ask the ambassador to either delay or defeat a related U.N. Security Council vote. Prosecutors told Judge Rudolph Contreras that Flynn was told by the senior member of Trump transition team to reach out to other countries to influence the U.N. vote, in an effort to delay or defeat the resolution.
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How is this a crime at all?
