A former top Department of Justice (DOJ) official alleged in newly released documents on Thursday that former President Barack Obama knew about the details of a wiretapped phone call between then-incoming national security advisor Michael Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Fox News Editor Gregg Re reported:
On January 5, 2017, Then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates attended an Oval Office meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, according to the newly declassified documents, including an FD-302 FBI witness report. They were discussing Russian election interference, along with national security adviser Susan Rice and other members of the national security council.
After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to “stay behind,” and said he had “learned of the information about Flynn” and his conversation with Russia’s ambassador about sanctions. Obama “specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.”
The Washington Examiner’s Byron York noted that former national security adviser Susan Rice had noted in a declassified memo to herself that she and then-Vice President Joe Biden were also in that meeting.
Rice’s memo stated: “At that point, Yates had no idea what the President was talking about, but figured it out based on the conversation. Yates recalled Comey mentioning the Logan Act, but can’t recall if he specified there was an ‘investigation.’ Comey did not talk.”
The January 5, 2017 meeting in which Sally Yates said she learned of Flynn-Kislyak call from President Obama himself–Susan Rice and VP Joe Biden were in that meeting, too, per Rice's famous memo-to-self. pic.twitter.com/6Wpdvkte0y
— Byron York (@ByronYork) May 7, 2020
The Daily Wire reported that the documents were released as the DOJ dropped the case against Flynn:
Court documents released Thursday, obtained exclusively by The Associated Press, reveal the DOJ decided to drop the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” The court documents further revealed that the DOJ concluded that the ill-fated FBI interview of Flynn on January 24, 2017 was “untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into Mr. Flynn” and “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”
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