On Friday, John Ratcliffe, the Director of the United States' National Intelligence, recently revealed declassified records of intercepted calls involving former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak in disclosure of intelligence materials.
Russian Scandal
The data reveals detailed call summaries dating back to December 2016 and in the weeks before US President Donald Trump took office, have given the most significant evidence that suggests Flynn did in fact explicitly talked about sanctions with Kislyak even though he told both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Vice President Mike Pence that he did not.
One particular call from December 29, 2016, which happened after the Obama administration handed out sanctions to Russia and ejected its diplomats for intervening with US elections, reveals Flynn talking about said sanctions, as reported by Yahoo News.
The summaries reveal Flynn saying "Let's keep this at even-keeled level; then when we come in, we will have a better conversation where we are going to go regarding our relationship."
Two days later during a follow-up call, Kislyak told Flynn that Russia's reply of not escalating against the United States was a result of their previous conversation.
According to CNN, before his departure this week, Richard Grenell, former acting Director of National Intelligence, declassified the documents. Ratcliffe then sent the documents to Congress on Friday which Senate Republicans quickly made public.
The documents centre around the controversy of Flynn's conversations with Kislyak regarding Flynn's guilty plea about his untruthful testaments to the FBI.
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Former special counsel Robert Mueller and his team procured the messages in 2017. Attorney General William Barr made a motion to dismiss the case early this month.
The calls are crucial to answering the questions about Flynn's attempt at covering up his conversations with Kislyak where they discussed sanctions on Israel and Russia that the United Nations voted on before Trump's presidency.
Accusations
The current president of the United States, Donald Trump, along with his allies, have accused the Obama government of attempting to sabotage them by focusing on Flynn and several of Trump's campaign team members.
Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said that Flynn and his legal team, as well as the American nation, can now clearly see that Flynn and all allegations against him were debunked and that the FBI knew there was nothing improper about his call, in a bid by Trump's administration that Flynn is innocent.
Kerri Kupec, the spokeswoman for the Department of Justice (DOJ), said that they have the authority to drop the case against Flynn at any time they wish to do so. "We have the prosecutorial discretion to make that decision," she added.
According to Fox News, Grenell completed the declassification of other documents regarding the origins of the Russia probe which includes one that a senior intelligence official said was crucial in learning how some parties manipulated intelligence to reflect support in the launch of the investigation on Russia.
The document has not been transmitted to Capitol Hill yet, and it is still unknown if Ratcliffe will share the information with other lawmakers.
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