Friday is the deadline for the FBI and Justice Department to give the Senate Judiciary Committee key documents in the Michael Flynn case.
It won’t happen, because that’s not how the current FBI and Justice Department deal with congressional demands involving the Trump-Russia affair. But sooner or later, Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is likely to get his way.
In a May 11 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Grassley noted that more than a year ago, on Feb. 15, 2017, the Judiciary Committee requested a copy of the transcript of a Dec. 2016 phone call between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It was that call that led the FBI to go to the White House to question the newly installed national security adviser on Jan. 24, 2017, just four days into the Trump administration. And it was that questioning that led to Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
The Judiciary Committee request was bipartisan. But the Justice Department refused to hand over the document. Instead, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed the committee on Flynn and other issues on March 15, 2017.
“Director Comey specifically told us during that briefing that the FBI agents who interviewed Lt. General Michael Flynn ‘saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying,'” Grassley wrote. Comey “led us to believe … that the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute [Flynn] for false statements made in that interview.” – READ MORE
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