Federal grand jury subpoenas have been issued for associates of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, CNN is reporting.
The news is breaking just after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
According to CNN, the subpoenas were issued within the past several weeks by the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. Dana Boente oversees that office. He is also acting as head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
The subpoenas seek information about Flynn associates’ business dealings after he left his position as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 and are part of a larger investigation into whether Trump associates colluded with the Russian government, according to CNN.
The investigation deals with possible wrongdoing on Flynn’s part regarding disclosures of payments he received from organizations tied to the governments of Russia and Turkey.
Through his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, signed a $600,000 contract in August with a Dutch shell company linked to the Turkish government. Flynn did not disclose the full extent of that contract until March 7 when he registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent of Turkey.
The Daily Caller first reported Flynn’s work for the Dutch firm, Inovo BV.
Flynn was fired by President Trump on Feb. 13, just 24 days into his tenure. The White House claimed that Flynn was fired for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about phone calls he had with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December.
The phone calls occurred just before and after the Obama administration slapped sanctions on Russia for meddling in the presidential campaign. Flynn falsely claimed that he did not discuss sanctions on the phone call, though transcripts of the intercepted phone calls reportedly showed otherwise.
Flynn may have misled the FBI about the phone call during an interview on Jan. 24.
Flynn has had other suspicious dealings with Russia. In Dec. 2015, he was paid $45,000 to attend a gala in Moscow hosted by RT, the news outlet owned and controlled by the Russian government. Flynn sat next to Vladimir Putin at the event.
As a former military officer, Flynn was required to disclose any foreign payments to the Defense Department. And though Flynn appears to have disclosed that he was traveling to the gala, he did not inform the Defense Department that he was being paid to do so.
CNN reports that it learned of the federal subpoenas just hours before Trump fired Comey.
The decision has already led to calls for the appointment of a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation into Trump associates’ ties to Russia.
In addition to Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former foreign policy adviser Carter Page, and informal adviser Roger Stone are said to be under investigation.
Flynn’s attorney, Robert Kelner, did not respond to a request for comment.
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