“I don’t remember” is what a top Justice Department official testified on Wednesday to the question of whether former Vice President Joe Biden brought up the Logan Act during a heavily scrutinized January 2017 Oval Office meeting featuring former President Barack Obama and others related to the investigation into retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general under Obama who briefly served as acting attorney general during the first 10 days of President Trump’s tenure, testified before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, claiming that neither Obama nor Biden tried to influence any investigation during the small meeting on Jan. 5, 2017, which included herself, Obama, Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, and former national security adviser Susan Rice. But, when pressed, Yates claimed she could not recall whether Biden brought up the controversial Logan Act as notes from now-fired FBI special agent Peter Strzok indicate he did.
Chairman Lindsey Graham asked Yates whether Biden mentioned the Logan Act during the meeting. She replied: “You know, I don’t remember the vice president saying much of anything in this meeting.” The South Carolina Republican followed up, asking, “So you don’t remember him mentioning the Logan Act?” Yates said, “No, I don’t.”
When Graham asked if anyone mentioned the Logan Act during the meeting, Yates said, “I have a vague memory of Director Comey mentioning the Logan Act,” but noted she couldn’t recall if it was then or just after her one-on-one discussion with Comey. The senator asked whether she believed Flynn’s discussions with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak amounted to a Logan Act violation, and Yates replied that “it certainly could’ve been a technical violation, but that was not the focus of the FBI or us — we were really focused on a counterintelligence investigation.”
But handwritten notes by Strzok released by the Justice Department in June seem to quote Biden directly raising the “Logan Act” related to Flynn, according to an apparent conversation Strzok had with Comey after the meeting. Strzok wrote that Comey said the Flynn-Kislyak calls “appear legit.” Obama emphasized that “the right people” should look into Flynn.
In recent interviews, Biden contradicted himself on what he knew about the Flynn investigation and when he knew it.
Graham said that “Strzok is telling us that Comey told him that not only the vice president was in the Jan. 5 set aside meeting, it was the vice president who brought up the Logan Act.” Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told Yates that “to go all the way to the Oval Office as you did on Jan. 5 with President Obama and Joe Biden going after their political opponents — it’s wrong.”
Obama also said something to the effect of “these are unusual times,” according to Strzok’s notes, and Biden said, “I’ve been on the Intel Committee for 10 years, and I never” before the notes trail off.
“While I don’t recall all the details of the conversation in the Oval Office, my memory is clear on the important points … During the meeting, the president, the vice president, and the national security adviser did not attempt to any way to direct or influence any investigation,” Yates testified. “Something like that would’ve set off alarms for me, and it would’ve stuck out both at the time and in my memory.”
In a memo written on Trump’s Inauguration Day, Rice noted Comey had “some concerns” about those calls and claimed Obama insisted everything be done “by the book.”
Both Strzok and Rice note that Obama asked if there is any sensitive information he should not mention to the Trump transition team. Rice wrote that Comey replied, “‘Potentially.’ He added that he has no indication that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak, but he noted that ‘the level of communication is unusual.’”
Documents declassified in April indicate Strzok abruptly stopped the FBI from closing its investigation into Flynn in early January 2017 at the insistence of the FBI’s “7th floor” leadership after the bureau had uncovered “no derogatory information” on Flynn. Emails from later that month showed Strzok, along with FBI lawyer Lisa Page and several others, sought out ways to continue investigating Flynn, including by potentially deploying the Logan Act.
Flynn, who served as Trump’s first national security adviser for a few weeks, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to FBI investigators about his December 2016 conversations with Kislyak and reaffirmed it a year later. But Flynn now claims he is innocent and was set up by the FBI, and the Justice Department is seeking to drop the case.
The Logan Act, which forbids private citizens from engaging in unauthorized correspondence with foreign governments in relation to “disputes or controversies with the United States,” was passed in 1799 and has only been used to indict someone twice, in 1802 and 1852, with no convictions.
Flynn’s team claims the Logan Act “became an admitted pretext to investigate General Flynn.” Flynn, whom Trump picked to be his national security adviser on Nov. 18, 2016, became the subject of intense media scrutiny and a cornerstone in arguments that the Trump campaign had ties to Russia.
A Washington Post column by David Ignatius on Jan. 12, 2017, contained classified details that kicked off a media frenzy. Citing a “senior U.S. government official,” he wrote that Flynn and Russia’s ambassador spoke on the phone on Dec. 29, 2016, the day that Obama announced sanctions on Russia, with the article suggesting Flynn violated the Logan Act.
A declassified list of officials who received information in response to unmasking requests shows that 16 individuals made 49 unmasking requests related to Flynn between Election Day 2016 and Jan. 31, 2017. The National Security Agency document shows 39 Obama officials received the unmasking intelligence. One of the officials was Biden.
U.S. Attorney John Bash is conducting an investigation into the unmasking requests by Obama administration officials while U.S. Attorney John Durham conducts a broader investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators.
