The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee is getting more suspicious of the White House’s actions regarding the firing of former national security adviser Mike Flynn.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., said on MSNBC Thursday he’s “baffled” by the White House’s positioning on the committee’s investigation into Flynn. The committee requested documents from the White House, and other executive branch agencies, to see whether Flynn requested permission to receive payments from the Russian and Turkish governments.
Retired military officers are not legally allowed to receive money from foreign governments unless they receive clearance from the government. It’s not clear if Flynn ever made that request before receiving fees for speaking in Russia and dining with Russian President Vladimir Putin or doing lobbying work for the Turkish government.
The White House denied the committee’s request to turn over documents related to Flynn’s vetting for the national security adviser role this month, and Cummings said that’s suspicious.
“I don’t know what they’re trying to do … this situation is one which leaves me baffled,” he said. “Here’s a man that the president fired, come on now, fired because he lied to the vice president, but it seems as if they’ve circled the wagons around him.”
He added, “It leaves those of us who are looking into, it makes us even more anxious to get more information and it makes me wonder what, if anything, is being hidden.”
The White House has argued it denied the committee’s request for documents because the Department of Defense had the relevant documents they were seeking. Press secretary Sean Spicer said this week Flynn’s issues are not relevant to the White House because he accepted the money from Russia and Turkey before coming into the administration in January.
Cummings said he doesn’t believe Spicer when he says the White House doesn’t know what’s going on with Flynn’s foreign payments, and he won’t be deterred by what he sees as White House obstruction.
Instead, he tried to send a message to Trump and his advisers: “Stop blocking us from getting the information that we need. We simply want to do our jobs.”
