Democrats investigating whether Michael Flynn promoted plan to build nuclear reactors in Middle East while national security adviser
Flynn is a central figure in a federal probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, into whether Trump aides colluded in an alleged Russian effort to boost Trump’s presidential campaign
Democratic lawmakers are probing whether retired US General Michael Flynn secretly promoted a US-Russian project to build dozens of nuclear reactors in the Middle East after becoming President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser.
Representatives Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel made the disclosure in a letter they sent on Tuesday to Flynn’s lawyer and executives of firms that developed the reactor scheme and for which Flynn’s now defunct consulting company worked.
“The American people deserve to know whether General Flynn was secretly promoting the private interests of these businesses while he was a [Trump] campaign adviser, transition official, or President Trump’s national security adviser,” the two said in the letter made public on Wednesday.
The American people deserve to know whether General Flynn was secretly promoting the private interests of these businesses
They asked Flynn’s lawyer and executives of companies involved in the project to provide “all communications” they had with Flynn or other administration officials during the 2016 campaign, the post-election transition or Flynn’s tenure as national security adviser. Robert Kelner, Flynn’s lawyer, declined to comment.
The project proposes to construct 40 nuclear reactors across the Middle East that would feed a regional electric grid. The reactors would be “proliferation proof”, meaning they could not be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.
Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Engel, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee, asked that the documents be provided by October 4.
Flynn is a central figure in a federal probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director, into whether Trump aides colluded in an alleged Russian effort to boost Trump’s presidential campaign. Russia has denied interfering in the US election and Trump has said there was no collusion.
Trump, who took office on January 20, fired Flynn on February 13, 18 days after a top Justice Department official warned that the former Defence Intelligence Agency director could be blackmailed because Moscow knew he made misleading statements about his contacts with Russian officials.