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Donald Trump says Michael Flynn got security clearance from Obama administration
President Donald Trump says that when Michael Flynn joined his campaign, President Barack Obama’s administration had already given him a once-over.
In an April 30 interview on CBS, Trump framed this detail as an inconvenient fact that the media is ignoring in order to prop up their "phony" storyline about Trump associates’ ties to Russia.
"In fact, I just heard where General Flynn got his clearance from the Obama administration," he said. "And when he went to Russia, I didn't realize this, when he went to Russia, it was 2015, and he was on the Obama clearance."
Flynn, a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama, was ousted from his Trump administration role as national security adviser after it came to light that Flynn had lied about the nature of his conversations with the Russian ambassador. Now he’s the focus of a tangential controversy, complete with an investigation by the Pentagon’s watchdog, over payments he received from foreign governments, including Russia.
We were interested in Trump’s statement that the Obama administration approved Flynn for security clearance, especially given that he was forced out of his Obama-era role in 2014.
We found that Trump has it right.
But that doesn’t affect the main allegation against Flynn: that he didn’t properly disclose payments he received from Russia, as required by law and Pentagon policy. Nor does it excuse any oversights the Trump team made while considering Flynn for a White House role.
Flynn’s foreign affairs
Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, spent his career as an intelligence officer in the Army, serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan and as director of intelligence for U.S. Central Command, among other posts. Obama promoted him to director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in April 2012.
Flynn retired from the agency in August 2014; news reports at the time said Flynn was forced out because he ruffled feathers with his management style. Since his departure, he has said he was fired for "calling our enemies radical jihadis."
In 2015, Flynn received more than $56,000 from three Russian entities — $33,750 from state-backed media outlet RT, $11,250 from an air cargo company, and $11,250 from a cybersecurity firm — according to documents released by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
In 2016, during the election, Flynn’s consulting firm earned more than $500,000 to work on projects that benefited the Turkish government. This became public knowledge in March 2017, when the firm filed papers to the Justice Department to retroactively register as a foreign agent.
Several months after Flynn left the DIA in 2014, he received a letter from the agency providing guidance on what he can and can’t do as an Army retiree. The letter, which Flynn himself requested, says "foreign compensation requires advance approval," per the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
Despite the letter, Flynn did not disclose to the government the payments he received from the Russian entities, according to Cummings and his Republican counterpart on the oversight committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah.
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/may/02/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-michael-flynn-got-security-clear/