Allegations that President Trump’s top national security adviser was targeted for embarrassing leaks due to his hostility to the Iran deal haven’t gained much traction among Senate Republicans.
“I haven’t heard anything of it,” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Washington Examiner late Wednesday afternoon. “I have a hard time putting any credence in it, but, like I said, it’s new to me.”
Reports that White House national security adviser Mike Flynn resigned as a result of leaks orchestrated by “former Obama officials [and] loyalists” who worried he might expose the undisclosed “side deals” attendant to the Iran nuclear deal received broad attention on Tuesday evening. An account of the alleged campaign received prominent placement on The Drudge Report, ensuring widespread attention from conservative and mainstream media outlets.
And yet, multiple Republicans who work on foreign policy issues disclaimed knowledge of the report. “I have not heard that at all and I wouldn’t have any way of even commenting,” Senate Foreign Relations chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told the Washington Examiner. Senate Armed Services chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., also said he didn’t know about the claim.
Former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who worked to create an “echo chamber” in favor of the Iran deal during congressional debate over the terms of the agreement, is one of several Obama administration alumni who have attacked Trump early and often in his presidency. But Rhodes denied involvement in the leaks that Flynn had spoken to the Russian ambassador about U.S. sanctions and lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the conversation.
“It’s totally absurd and doesn’t make any sense,” Rhodes told The Atlantic. “I don’t know who the sources are for these stories and I don’t even understand the false conspiracy theory—how would getting rid of Flynn be the thing that saves the Iran Deal? It’s an effort to make the conversation about anything other than the actual story of what happened with Russia.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also doubts that Flynn is a casualty in a political proxy war over the Iran deal. “Everybody is against the Iran deal in the administration, so I think that’s a little too elaborate,” he said.
Iran deal or not, Graham condemned the flood of leaks as an unprecedented attack on a president.
“There’s clearly classified intelligence being leaked all over the place, so it’s probably multiple sources,” he said. “They’re more troubling than anything I’ve seen . . . And we’re talking about conversations between the president and foreign leaders — haven’t seen that before.”
Corker, a reluctant critic of Trump who was a contender to be his running mate and lead the State Department, suggested that a “fulsome investigation” of Russian interference in the presidential election might stem the tide.
“It’d just be good for us to get the Russia entity behind us and I think the only way to do so is with a fulsome investigation,” he told the Washington Examiner. “I think that actually helps the White House move ahead and not have the daily distractions of things just sort of, water dropping out over time, and this issue continuing to be a distraction [from] all the other things we’ve got to deal with.”
