A top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee said former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s guilty plea Friday provides the evidence needed to start a congressional probe into whether President Trump obstructed justice.
“This development adds further weight to our suspicion of President Trump’s corrupt motives when he approached former FBI Director Comey about the Flynn investigation and asked that he ‘let it go,’” Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said in a statement. “There is now more than enough evidence to form the basis of a congressional investigation into the president’s obstruction of justice — mark and it is long past time that the House Committee on the Judiciary engage on this matter.”
Though Nadler believes there should be an investigation into potential obstruction of justice, it’s unlikely such a probe will occur, as Republicans control the House.
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2016. The former national security adviser said he plans to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators.
According to court documents, Flynn spoke with senior members of the Trump transition team about his communications with Kislyak, some of which centered around U.S. sanctions against Russia.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior adviser at the White House, reportedly instructed Flynn to contact officials with foreign governments, including Russia, about a resolution before the United Nations Security Council regarding Israeli settlements. Documents filed by the federal government said a “very senior member” of the Trump transition team instructed Flynn to reach out to those foreign officials.
A senior member of the transition team also directed Flynn to discuss with Kislyak the sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in December 2016.
Flynn’s guilty plea, as well as the information presented by the federal government in its Statement of Offense, prompted congressional Democrats to call again for Congress to enact protections for the special counsel.
“The plea secured by Mueller may prompt the White House and its allies to seek to curtail congressional investigations, as President Trump has attempted to do already, or end the special counsel’s work prematurely,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “Congress must make it clear that this would not be acceptable, that we will continue doing a diligent and thoughtful investigation, and do everything in our power to ensure the independence of the special counsel.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Flynn’s guilty plea “marks a dark moment in our nation’s history,” and reiterated her calls for an independent commission to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“The U.S. Congress has a duty to uphold justice, and to take measures to ensure that special counsel Mueller’s investigation proceed without interference from the White House,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Even with the Justice Department and ongoing congressional investigations, we also need an outside, fully independent investigation to protect our democracy from future foreign interference.”
Flynn’s guilty plea comes one day after the New York Times reported Trump asked top Senate Republicans to end the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
“It was something along the lines of, ‘I hope you can conclude this as quickly as possible,’” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the committee’s chairman, told the New York Times.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Flynn’s plea, as well as the New York Times report, heightens the need for lawmakers to speak out against Trump’s actions.
“It is part of an alarming pattern in which the president has already fired the FBI director; pressured the attorney general and top U.S. intelligence officials to interfere with an ongoing investigation; and contemplated issuing pardons for his associates or firing the special counsel, according to numerous press reports,” Warner said. “Members of Congress from both parties must make clear that those actions would be fundamentally unacceptable and incompatible with the rule of law.”
Flynn is the first member of the Trump administration to be charged in Mueller’s probe. He made false statements to the FBI during a January interview, and was fired from his post as national security adviser in February for making similar misleading statements to Vice President Mike Pence.
A federal grand jury indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates late last month.
