The White House attorney responsible for handling its response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe was spotted heading into two Justice Department briefings Thursday for lawmakers on a reported “informant” the FBI used in its investigation of the Trump campaign.
Emmet Flood was spotted at the Justice Department, where Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other DOJ officials were scheduled to brief House Speaker Paul Ryan, House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes and House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy. Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the Intel Committee, also attended the noon briefing, after initial reports that only Republican lawmakers were invited. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly also reportedly attended at least part of the briefing.
Wow — @LauraAJarrett saw Emmett Flood leaving the Department of Justice alongside Nunes, Gowdy, Ryan and Kelly. Flood replaced Ty Cobb on Trump’s legal team earlier this year.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 24, 2018
I am told by two officials that Emmet Flood and John Kelly joined the beginning of the meeting at DOJ about an FBI informant, and left after making some initial comments.
— Nicholas Fandos (@npfandos) May 24, 2018
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats also joined Rosenstein at the briefings. After the noon meeting, they headed to the Capitol to brief the so-called “Gang of 8”: The House and Senate Intel Committees’ chairs and vice chairs, the House Speaker and Minority Leader, and the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders. (Ryan attended the noon briefing due to a prior commitment.) Gowdy was also slated to attend that meeting.
Flood, too, was spotted heading into the briefing, being held in the basement of the Capitol, as was Kelly.
WH lawyer Emmet Flood has also arrived, per @tedbarrettcnn https://t.co/Zsnq000Biw
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) May 24, 2018
Spotted arriving at the Capitol for the Gang of Eight DOJ Briefing: WH Chief of Staff John Kelly and WH Attorney Emmet Flood: pic.twitter.com/aJ1eBGXGAs
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) May 24, 2018
Kelly and Flood have now left the briefing. Like the first one, they were only there at the outset. https://t.co/jSgJ7cTTGQ
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 24, 2018
Kelly did not explain Flood’s presence at the briefings when asked by CNN reporters at the Capitol.
John Kelly, arriving at Senate for classified briefing, declines to explain to @ElizLanders and @tedbarrettcnn why WH attorney Flood attended DOJ briefing
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 24, 2018
The White House Press Secretary had previously said that White House officials would not be attending the briefings.
The White House in a statement said that Flood and Kelly only made brief remarks at the top of the meetings to “relay the President’s desire for as much openness as possible under the law,” as well as to convey “the President’s understanding of the need to protect human intelligence services and the importance of communication between the branches of government.”
“After making their brief comments they departed before the meetings officially started,” the statement said.
GRAHAM to me: “why he (the president’s lawyer – Emmet Flood) is there (in these classified briefings), I don’t know. That is a bit odd. If the president’s lawyer is there, I’d like to know why.”
— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) May 24, 2018
RUDY tells @dsamuelsohn that today’s briefing will inform Trump’s legal defense:
“We want to see how the briefing went to today and how much we learned from it. If we learned a good deal from it, it will shorten that whole process considerably.”
Exactly what Dems feared.
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 24, 2018
Update: This story has been updated with a statement from the White House.
I’m sure she did.
The Republican “leadership” didn’t want the Democrats there initially, but were OK with Trump’s lawyer?
I sooo can’t wait for the Rule of Law to lock them up.
Did Flood borrow someone else’s security clearance?
“Hello, Mr. Flood. This is Robert Mueller. He has a few questions to ask you before you return to your ruined legal career.”
He’s there so Nunes can slip the documents under the door to him