After former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia on the guilty plea, President Donald Trump said there was absolutely no collusion between his campaign and Russia, Reuters reports. Flynn’s guilty plea brought special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation onto the front lawn of the White House.
Flynn is the first person successfully prosecuted by Mueller who held a formal position in the Trump administration, The Hill reports. Flynn has previously admitted that he lied the FBI about his conversation last year with Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
According to the prosecutors, senior member of Trump’s transition team told Flynn to contact Russia and other governments to try to influence them ahead of a UN vote, considered to be damaging to Israel. Flynn reportedly asked Kislyak to help delay the vote and Reuters reports that the senior member is actually current senior White House adviser and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Former adviser K.T. McFarland is also mentioned as one of the Trump transition officials who spoke to Flynn about his contacts with Russian officials.
According to the prosecutors, Flynn and the former Russian ambassador last December talked about economic sanctions imposed by Obama’s administration and Flynn asked Kislyak to refrain from escalating a diplomatic dispute. Flynn allegedly consulted a senior member of Trump’s team about what to communicate to the Russian ambassador and called the official once again after the conversation with Kislyak. Allegedly, that person is McFarland.
Legal experts say that Mueller could now be looking at whether Trump’s team violated the Logan Act that prohibits private citizens from working with foreign governments against the U.S. government. But, The Hill reports that no one has ever been successfully prosecuted under that law.
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