WASHINGTON -- The lead Democrat and Republican on the House Oversight Committee rebuked former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday after seeing private information that confirmed he failed to disclose foreign income from Russia and Turkey.
Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., used sharp words to chastise Flynn, who was ousted in February after misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with a former Russian ambassador.
The lawmakers said they believe that Flynn neither received permission nor fully disclosed income he earned for a speaking engagement in Russia and lobbying activities on behalf of Turkey when he applied to renew his security clearance. They reached the conclusion after viewing two classified memos and a disclosure form in a private briefing Tuesday morning.
"Personally I see no evidence or no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law," Chaffetz told reporters after the briefing.
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Said Cummings: "He was supposed to get permission, he was supposed to report it, and he didn't. This is a major problem."
Chaffetz and Cummings stressed Tuesday that as a former military officer, Flynn would have needed special permission for his December 2015 appearance at a gala sponsored by RT, the Russian-government-funded television station, for which he was paid $45,000. For his work lobbying on behalf of the Turkish government, he was paid more than $500,000.
Chaffetz also said Flynn appeared to have inappropriately accepted payments from companies linked to Russia without first getting required approval from the Pentagon and the State Department.
"As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else," Chaffetz said. "And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate, and there are repercussions for a violation of law."
The Republican later added that while Flynn was clearly not in compliance with the law, "it would be a little strong to say that he flat-out lied."
Democrats immediately pounced on the news.
"The disturbing news that Gen. Flynn may have violated the law in connection with his security clearance may be just the tip of the iceberg," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on Tuesday.
"These revelations highlight the importance of the intelligence committee working in a bipartisan way to request and receive documents with respect to any financial arrangements Flynn and others in similar positions may have had with foreign governments," he said.
Flynn's omission could cost him. Violations of this nature can be punished by up to five years in jail.
Chaffetz stressed that the government should "recover the money" paid to Flynn by foreign entities -- a figure that would at least be in the tens of thousands of dollars. But the future of any action may not depend on him. Chaffetz announced last week that he would resign from Congress in 2018 and perhaps leave much sooner.
The rebuke came as the House and Senate intelligence committees move ahead with their investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 election to help Trump. The FBI also is investigating Russia's suspected interference in the campaign, and both the congressional panels and the Justice Department are examining alleged ties between Trump allies and Russian officials.
After a rocky start, the House Intelligence Committee is gaining steam with a new head of the Russia investigation: Rep. K. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, who stepped in after the former chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., recused himself. The House investigation was all but stalled after Nunes appeared to coordinate with the White House regarding names of officials he argued could have been improperly revealed in surveillance reports.
The Senate also is taking action. The former acting attorney general, Sally Yates, and the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper Jr., are to testify before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8. The House Intelligence Committee also has invited Yates and Clapper to testify in a public hearing that has not yet been scheduled.
White House: no files
Chaffetz and Cummings also said White House officials refused their request to turn over other internal documents related to the hiring and firing of Flynn.
Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, said Tuesday that "to ask for every call or contact that a national security adviser made is pretty outlandish, if you will."
On April 19, the White House sent the committee a reply, stating that any documents related to Flynn from before Jan. 20 -- the day Trump took office -- were not in its possession and that any documents from after that date did not seem relevant to the investigation.
"In short, the White House has refused to provide this committee with a single piece of paper in response to our bipartisan request, and that is unacceptable," Cummings said Tuesday.
Chaffetz said he did not think it would be necessary to subpoena the documents, calling the administration "cooperative" so far.
Spicer would not say in his Tuesday briefing whether Flynn may have broken the law.
"That would be a question for him and the law enforcement agency. I don't know what he filled out or what he did or didn't do," Spicer told reporters. "He filled that form out before coming here, so it would be up to the committee and other authorities to look at that."
He insisted the Trump administration had provided all the documents Congress requested.
"Every document they asked for it's my understanding they've gotten," he said.
He added that records requests for Flynn's conversations with foreign contacts was "unwieldy," arguing it was Flynn's job "to talk with foreign counterparts on a daily basis."
"To document every call that he may have made is not exactly a request that is able to be filled."
The documents that House Oversight committee members reviewed Tuesday came from the Defense Intelligence Agency and showed that Flynn had not declared any income from Russian or Turkish sources despite the fact that the forms were filed about a month after Flynn's trip to Moscow to speak at the RT gala, Cummings said.
Flynn attorney Rob Kelner of Covington & Burling said his client has spoken extensively with the Defense Intelligence Agency about his RT engagement.
"As has previously been reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of [the Department of Defense], extensively regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by [the Defense Intelligence Agency] concerning the trip during those briefings," Kelner said in a statement.
The Oversight Committee asked the White House in March for documents pertaining to Flynn's security-clearance applications, the vetting that occurred before he was named national security adviser, and all of his contacts with foreign agents, including any payments received. In particular, the committee heads requested to see a disclosure form known as the SF86, on which Flynn was obligated to declare any foreign income.
The committee is not likely to pull Flynn before the panel for testimony -- despite Cummings' insistence that it "should be holding a hearing with Gen. Flynn."
Chaffetz said he would "highly doubt" that the committee would call Flynn to testify, deferring any command for such an audience to the House Intelligence Committee.
Information for this article was contributed by Karoun Demirjian, David Nakamura and Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post and by Emmarie Huetteman and Adam Goldman of The New York Times.
A Section on 04/26/2017