{UAH} SUSAN RICE WAS RELUCTANT TO SHARE INFORMATION WITH THE INCOMMING TEAM

Fully declassified Susan Rice email reveals reluctance to share 'sensitive' Russia information with Michael Flynn

by Jerry Dunleavy

 May 19, 2020 03:24 PM

 Updated May 19, 2020, 03:57 PM

 

Former FBI Director James Comey is sworn in during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, June 8, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Alex Brandon/AP

 

An email that Obama national security adviser Susan Rice sent herself detailing an early January 2017 Oval Office meeting has been fully declassified, revealing just how focused the outgoing Obama administration was on retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

A portion of Rice's email, sent to herself on Trump's Inauguration Day, was not visible to the public until Tuesday. It shows now-fired FBI Director James Comey stating his concerns about the incoming Trump national security adviser's conversations with a Russian envoy and expressing reluctance to share "sensitive information" related to Russia with Flynn.

"Director Comey affirmed that he is processing ‘by the book’ as it relates to law enforcement. From a national security perspective, Comey said he does have some concerns that incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian ambassador Kislyak. Comey said that could be an issue as it relates to sharing sensitive information," Rice wrote. "President Obama asked if Comey was saying that the NSC should not pass sensitive information related to Russia to Flynn. Comey replied ‘potentially.’ He added that he has no indication that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak, but he noted that ‘the level of communication is unusual.’"

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told Robert Mueller’s special counsel team she first learned the U.S. government had intercepted conversations between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak from Obama himself, following a White House meeting about the Intelligence Community assessment attended by Yates, Rice, then-Vice President Joe Biden, Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and others. Obama asked Yates and Comey to stay behind with Rice and Biden when that meeting concluded.

On Obama’s last day in office, Rice penned an internal memo detailing the Jan. 5 confab that followed.

The letter, which up until Tuesday was already mostly declassified, was fully declassified through an effort by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and Attorney General William Barr after a Monday request from Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Comey admitted in 2018 that he took advantage of the chaos in the early days of Trump's administration when he sent FBI agent Peter Strzok and another FBI agent believed to be Joseph Pientka to talk to Flynn, who was a target of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, on Jan. 24, 2017.

“I sent them,” Comey said to MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace, prompting laughter in the audience. “Something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with in … a more organized administration. In the George W. Bush administration, for example, or the Obama administration.”

"In both of those administrations, there was process, and so, if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, and there’d be discussions and approvals and who would be there, and I thought, it’s early enough — let’s just send a couple guys over," he added.

In a section of the email to herself that was already declassified, Rice wrote: "On January 5, following a briefing by IC [intelligence community] leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present."

“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book.’ … The president stressed that he is not asking about, initiating, or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book,” Rice said.

The Justice Department filed earlier this month to dismiss charges against Flynn, who cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian diplomat.

The Justice Department’s May court filing described the clash between Comey and Yates on the question of whether to tell the incoming Trump administration that the recording of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador did not entirely square up with what Flynn had apparently told incoming Vice President Mike Pence. Comey “took the position that the FBI would not notify the incoming Trump administration of the Flynn-Kislyak communications." Yates and other senior DOJ officials “took the contrary view and believed that the incoming administration should be notified.”

The Yates FBI interview notes indicate that “the interview was problematic” to her “because as a matter of protocol and as a courtesy, the White House Counsel’s Office should have been notified of the interview." She stressed that “the FBI’s approach was inconsistent with how things had been done.”

Flynn's lawyers have touted recently released FBI records as being exculpatory evidence that was concealed from the defense team. The documents suggest that now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and the FBI’s “7th floor” leadership stopped the bureau from closing its investigation into Flynn in early January 2017, even though investigators had uncovered “no derogatory information," after intercepts of Flynn's communications with the Russian envoy emerged. Emails from later that month show Strzok, along with then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page and several others, sought out ways to continue investigating Flynn, including by deploying the Logan Act.

In moving to drop the charges against Flynn, the Justice Department said that after reviewing newly disclosed materials, it agreed with Flynn’s attorneys that his interview with the FBI should never have taken place because his conversations with the Russian ambassador were “entirely appropriate.”

Among the Flynn records recently unveiled to the public were handwritten notes from former FBI Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap on the day the FBI interviewed Flynn. “I believe we should rethink this,” Priestap wrote. “What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

The judge presiding over the case, Emmet Sullivan, invited outside opinions last week and appointed a retired judge to argue against the motion to dismiss and to explore whether Flynn should be held in contempt for perjury.

Last week, Grenell declassified a National Security Agency document revealing unmasking requests from Obama officials between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day, with Biden being one of the authorized recipients of the unmasking intelligence.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a December report revealing flaws in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, and footnotes newly declassified by Grenell and Barr show that the FBI was aware that British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier might have been compromised by Russian disinformation.

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