Summary: Robert Mueller has turned his investigation into Russia to an alleged meeting between Mike Flynn and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher over a year ago.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators are looking into an alleged meeting between Mike Flynn and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, according to NBC News, as part of the investigation between Russia and the election. Flynn served as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser for a short time. Rohrabacher is a big supporter of policies that help Russia.
The alleged meeting happened on September 20, 2016, when Flynn was Trump’s adviser for his presidential campaign. The sources who talked with NBC News claim Flynn’s lobbying form, the Flynn Intel Group, set up the meeting. Others that attended the meeting include Flynn’s business partners Brian McCauley and Bijan Kian as well as his son Michael G. Flynn.
Mueller’s team is currently going through emails sent from the Flynn Intel Group to Rohrabacher’s congressional staff where they thank them for the meeting. The investigators are unsure if U.S. policy was discussed during the supposed meeting.
California Republican Rohrabacher has pushed for improved relations with Russia, even traveling to Moscow to meet with officials and to fight for the reversal of the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 bill that froze assets of investigators and prosecutors from Russia.
Another California Republican, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, was overheard saying back in May that “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” according to the Washington Post.
The Wall Street Journal reported two months ago that Rohrabacher approached Trump with a deal to protect WikiLeaks creator Julian Assange from persecution. WikiLeaks released emails involving Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election that greatly damaged her chances. The deal allegedly involved Assange providing proof that Russia was not the source of the Democratic emails in exchange for safety from legal recourse following the leak of State Department emails in 2010. Democrats have pointed fingers at Russia as being the hackers of their accounts.
The investigation into Trump and possible connections with Russia has now involved its first member of Congress.
Collected evidence so far suggests the Flynn Intel Group spent most of its efforts lobbying for Turkey. Direct ties to lobby work for Russia has not been discovered except for a gala he attended in Moscow in December 2015. He was paid $45,000 plus expenses to attend the gala and provide an interview with RT, the Kremlin-financed TV news channel. They are now looking deeper into Flynn’s work with Turkey. Federal authorities allege that he was offered millions of dollars to secure the return of the Turkish president’s chief rival and for a U.S. case against a Turkish national to be dropped.
Flynn was the national security adviser for Trump for only 24 days before it became clear that he mislead Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he had with Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.
Sources claim Mueller has enough evidence to indict Flynn and his son but nothing official has been released.
Do you think it is wrong for two people to meet? Should they have to make their meeting public? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
To learn more about the investigation, read these articles:
- Former National Security Adviser’s Son Latest Target of Russia Investigation
- Roger Stone Denies Colluding with Russians
- Senate Intelligence Committee Grills Facebook, Twitter, and Google about Russia’s Role in 2016 Presidential Election
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