Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating Michael Flynn’s former business partner Bijan Kian, regarding his role in the failure of Flynn’s former lobbying firm to disclose its work on behalf of foreign governments, NBC News writes.
Kian, an Iranian-American who was a partner at the now-dissolved Flynn Intel Group, is under scrutiny from federal investigators, who have questioned multiple witnesses in recent weeks about his lobbying work on behalf of Turkey. The grand jury convened for the investigation will soon have a chance to question some of those witnesses, sources told NBC News.
Mueller recently indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates simultaneously. Both Flynn’s and Manafort’s lobbying firms have come under investigation for failing to disclose lobbying work on behalf of foreign governments.
Mueller is leading the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion, which led him to probe the work of Flynn and Manafort, who both served on the Trump campaign and lobbied on behalf of foreign governments without initially disclosing it, NBC News adds.
The Flynn Intel Group, managed by Flynn, who was briefly President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, was paid $530,000 for lobbying on behalf of a Netherlands-based firm called Inovo BV, owned by Turkish-American businessman Ekim Alptekin.
Months later, the firm filed the required paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), acknowledging that the work “could be construed to have principally benefitted the Republic of Turkey,” according to the filing.
Mueller’s team is now probing Kian’s role in the Inovo contract as well as foreign lobbying efforts that the Flynn Intel Group may have yet to disclose, according to the sources familiar with the investigation. Emails subpoenaed by the Special Counsel’s Office revealed a September 20, 2016, meeting between Kian, Flynn and pro-Russia Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.
Rohrabacher, a California Republican, has pushed for better relations with Russia, traveled to Moscow to meet with officials and advocated to overturn the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 bill that froze assets of Russian investigators and prosecutors.
The Flynn Intel Group did not disclose this meeting even after the company retroactively filed as a foreign agent under FARA, which has led to scrutiny by Mueller’s team, NBC adds.
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