The White House is rejecting the House Oversight Committee’s request for documents about former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
In a letter to the House Oversight Committee last Wednesday, Marc Short, an assistant to the president and director of legislative affairs, told the committee that most of the documents they were seeking were in the custody of some other agency.
But the explanation was significantly more delicate regarding documentation of Flynn’s contacts with foreign nationals.
“Many, if not all, documents relating to such contacts are likely to contain classified, sensitive, and/or confidential information,” Short wrote. “Moreover, it is unclear how such documents would be relevant to the stated purpose of the committee’s review, which according to your letter is to examine Lt. Gen Flynn’s disclosure of payments related to activities that occurred in 2015 and 2016, prior to his service in the White House. In light of these issues, we are unable to accommodate [the request.]”
The top leaders of the House Oversight Committee, Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Elijah Cummings, held a joint press conference on Tuesday after meeting with the Defense Intelligence Agency and said they were being denied information from the White House. They also said they could not find any documentation that Flynn sought permission to accept funds from an appearance on Russian television, and that there also appears to be no documentation of the payment as well.
Flynn’s paid appearance on Russian TV would have required multiple disclosures because he is a former Army general.
