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Clipped the important parts of the article below…
Michael Flynn ignored official warnings about receiving foreign payments
Trump’s former national security adviser was warned about taking foreign money as far back as 2014, the Pentagon’s inspector general has found, undermining claims of political persecution
After the retired general pleaded guilty in 2017 to federal criminal charges that he had lied to the FBI during its investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, then-president Donald Trump, Flynn and their supporters claimed that Flynn was the victim of political persecution.
Flynn’s prosecution, they insisted, without evidence, was the result of a vast conspiracy by the FBI and US intelligence agencies to sabotage Trump’s presidential campaign and presidency. Trump pardoned Flynn in the final days of his presidency.
But while pleading guilty in 2017, Flynn also admitted to committing another crime: related to his acceptance of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government of Turkey without registering with the justice department as an agent of a foreign government, which was required by law.
Moreover, Flynn’s conduct occurred while he was a private citizen, long before Trump became president. Taken together, this appears to constitute powerful new evidence discrediting Trump and Flynn’s claims of political persecution by those opposed to Trump’s agenda.
The Defense Intelligence Agency first warned Flynn in an 8 October 2014 letter, that his acceptance of foreign money might be a potential violation of federal law, as well as the emoluments clause of the US constitution, which similarly prohibits such foreign payments to government officials.
On 30 November 2016, the justice department separately warned Flynn he might be violating a federal law, known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or Fara, in relation to his work as a lobbyist for the Turkish regime of the strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Despite the DIA warning not to take foreign money, Flynn still accepted $45,000 from RT, a Kremlin-controlled media organization described by US intelligence agencies as the “Kremlin’s principal international propaganda outlet”, $22,000 from other Russian interests, and $530,000 to serve as a lobbyist for Turkey.
Flynn resigned as DIA director in early August 2014. More than a year later, in December 2015, he accepted the payments from RT. From August 2016 until November of the same year, Flynn worked as an unregistered lobbyist for Turkey – while simultaneously serving as a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign. On 18 November 2016, Trump, then the president-elect, named Flynn to be his national security adviser.
Because Flynn ignored the DIA’s warnings that his acceptance of foreign money would violate federal law, the DoD inspector general is currently making the case to the secretary of the army that Flynn be required to turn over to the US Treasury a portion of the proceeds that Flynn received from overseas sources. The IG contends that the payments were illegal under the emoluments clause, as interpreted by executive branch legal opinions, and related federal law.
This remedy would appear to be a civil one rather than criminal.
Retired military officers such as Flynn can receive emoluments or foreign compensation if they first seek approval to do so from Congress, the secretary of state, and in Flynn’s case, as a retired military officer, the secretary of the army. But Flynn did not do so.
Flynn himself had originally solicited the ethics advice from the agency. The first sentence of the agency’s letter stated: “This letter responds to your request for a written opinion regarding the ethics restrictions that apply to your retirement from the United States Army.”
A spokesperson for the DoD inspector general said in a statement that they had “closed our investigation” of Flynn on 27 January – having investigated allegations that “Flynn failed to obtain required approval from the Army and the Department of State before receiving any emolument from a foreign government-controlled entity”.
The IG had since “forwarded several administrative matters by memo to the Acting Secretary of the Army for review and appropriate action”.
The spokesperson refused to say whether the inspector general will release a public report on its findings, as the DoD IG and other IGs throughout the government have routinely done in high-profile investigations.
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