Former White House National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn does not appear to have complied with the law when he received money from Russia and Turkey, U.S. House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Elijah Cummings said.
The lawmakers told reporters on Tuesday that their review of Mr. Flynn’s application for a security clearance revealed an “extremely troubling” picture.
The press conference followed a classified gathering of the committee on Tuesday, where lawmakers reviewed to see if Mr. Flynn properly disclosed payments he received from foreign governments, including Turkey and Russia. They were reviewing documents that Pentagon submitted after the committee’s request in March.
“I see no data to support the notion that Gen. Flynn complied with the law,” Mr. Chaffetz said about the disgraced general’s payment by a pro-Kremlin TV channel in Moscow.
In March, Mr. Flynn retrospectively filed the necessary paperwork to register himself as a foreign agent for Turkey, 7 months after he failed to disclose that he received more than half million dollars from a businessman close to Turkey’s authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mr. Chaffetz said it appears that Gen. Flynn took money from Russia and Turkey.
“As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else. And it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate, and there are repercussions for a violation of law,” Mr. Chaffetz, the Republican lawmaker from Utah, said.