A Defense Department official denied rumors that a particular senior Pentagon official leaked classified information to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius about retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn’s contacts with a Russian envoy during the presidential transition period.
Responding to a November court filing, in which Flynn’s attorney said the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment Director James Baker is “believed” to be behind the leaks reportedly being scrutinized by U.S. Attorney John Durham in his Russia investigation inquiry, a Defense Department official told the Washington Examiner: “The reference by the defense team for Mr. Flynn was a note in their court filing. At no time since that filing has anyone within the DoD or the DOJ investigated Mr. Baker, nor given any credence to this ‘belief.’”
Documents show Baker routinely communicated with Ignatius, whose Jan. 12, 2017, column first described Flynn’s phone conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition. A follow-up article was published by the Washington Post on Feb. 9, 2017.
Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, was fired in February 2017 a couple of weeks into the job after Ignatius’s column suggested he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his conversations with Kislyak.
Flynn, whose discussions with Kislyak were intercepted by the U.S. government during the Obama administration, pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents in 2017 about his conversations with the Russian envoy. But he filed to withdraw his guilty plea earlier this year after the Justice Department asked the judge to sentence him to up to six months in prison.
His lead attorney, Sidney Powell, urged the judge to dismiss the case by arguing that the FBI treated Flynn unfairly, and the DOJ filed to do just that last week. The judge presiding over the case, Emmet Sullivan, invited outside opinions Tuesday and appointed a retired judge on Wednesday to argue against the motion to dismiss and to explore whether Flynn should be held in contempt for perjury.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained and released email exchanges between Ignatius and Baker. They also show Ignatius mentioning he had discussions with former Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work.
Powell’s court filing on Nov. 1 speculates Baker is the source of Ignatius’s Jan. 12 column and describes him as a “handler” of Stefan Halper, a Cambridge professor and an FBI informant who made contact with members of the Trump campaign.
“[Halper] was paid exorbitant sums by the FBI/CIA/DOD through the Department of Defense Department’s Office of Net Assessment in 2016. His tasks seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent) Flynn met at an official dinner at Cambridge University when he was head of DIA in 2014,” Powell wrote of Halper.
“Flynn has requested the records of Col. James Baker because he was Halper’s ‘handler’ in the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, and ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius. Baker is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn’s calls to Ignatius,” she added.
The Defense Department defended the contacts between Baker and Ignatius, as shown in the FOIA disclosures, as being nothing out of the ordinary and in compliance with agency regulations.
“All ONA interactions with media are conducted in accordance with DOD policy and ATSD/PA procedures. The documents referenced were released according to FOIA requirements and illustrate regular interactions between department officials and members of press,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Uriah Orland told the Washington Examiner.
Baker referred the Washington Examiner’s questions to the Defense Department, which declined further comment.
In January, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, wrote to the Office of Net Assessment inquiring about whether Halper used taxpayer money to spy on the Trump campaign.
According to a congressional source, the information regarding the Flynn-Kislyak conversations was passed along from a U.S. Intelligence Community briefing hosted by Work.
“Bob Work, who was the deputy secretary, had an IC briefing, whereupon he heard all this crap about Flynn … but he did have an IC meeting, and then went down to Baker, and then Baker put it out. In other words, Baker was Bob Work’s cut-out guy,” the source said.
Baker wrote to Bob Work’s chief of staff Zach Meers in a Feb. 16, 2016, email, which was obtained by Judicial Watch, with the subject title “Ignatius.”
“Zach-as a reminder only, I have a long history with David (Ignatius) and talk with him regularly. [REDACTION] If I can be helpful before or after the discussion, please let me know,” he wrote.
The very next day, Ignatius emailed Baker about a meeting he had with Work and now-retired Gen. Paul Selva, the deputy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Had a fascinating breakfast this am with Work and Selva,” he said.
Two days later, on Feb. 19, Baker forwarded the Ignatius-Work breakfast meeting email to Mears. “We’ll follow up with him Monday,” he wrote.
In a Dec. 2, 2016, email, obtained by the Washington Examiner from a congressional source, Baker sent to his staff an Ignatius piece in the Washington Post in which Work is quoted about briefing the Trump transition team about “the declining U.S. edge, or ‘overmatch,’ in conventional weapons, relative to Russia and China.”
“I am not a happy camper and will express that to the deputy,” Baker commented about the article.
Work was picked by former President Barack Obama to be undersecretary of the Navy in May 2009. He held that post until April 2013 and left the administration to become the CEO at the Center for a New American Security. Work returned to the Obama administration on Feb. 7, 2014, after Obama nominated him to be the deputy secretary of defense. He stayed on through to the Trump administration until July 14, 2017. Work currently serves as a senior counselor for the Telemus Group.
Work denied the accusation he helped relay any information about the Flynn-Kislyak call to the media, saying the congressional source is “misinformed.”
“I had absolutely no involvement with relaying info to the media or public about the Flynn/Kislayak calls. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, I didn’t deal with Gen Flynn, either during the transition or after. I met him once at Dover for a dignified transfer of a fallen SEAL,” Work told the Washington Examiner in an email after publication.
“Moreover, I had zero insight into his schedule or activities. I had no knowledge of the calls, nor would I have any reason to. And I certainly didn’t relay any information about Flynn to the press,” he added.
In her court filing, Powell wrote that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper gave Ignatius the go-ahead to publish the classified information about the call between Flynn and Kislyak after Baker leaked the information to the columnist.
“The defense has requested the phone records of James Clapper to confirm his contacts with Washington Post reporter Ignatius — especially on Jan. 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of ‘take the kill shot on Flynn.’ It cannot escape mention that the press has long had transcripts of the Kislyak calls that the government has denied to the defense,” Powell stated.
His spokesman told Fox News that Clapper “absolutely did not say those words to David Ignatius.”
Powell remains unconvinced.
“He called Ignatius after passing the baton and told him to pull the trigger,” she told the Washington Examiner.
Clapper denied leaking the Flynn-Kislyak call to Ignatius, telling CNN’s John Berman last week he “did not” reveal any information about the call to the Washington Post columnist.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with Bob Work’s statement.
