The question of whether President Trump obstructed justice in the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn has always hinged on his familiarity with the details of that probe — and when he learned them.
A new report out Tuesday in the New York Review of Books suggests Trump knew that there was an ongoing criminal investigation into Flynn and his interactions with Russian officials when he asked then-FBI director James Comey on Feb. 14, 2017 to let Flynn “go.”
Reporter Murray Waas said that he reviewed a White House memo that “explicitly states that when Trump pressured Comey he had just been told by two of his top aides — his then chief of staff Reince Priebus and his White House counsel Don McGahn — that Flynn was under criminal investigation.”
According to Waas, “people familiar with the matter” have told him that both Priebus and McGahn also testified to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that they personally provided this information to Trump during a Jan. 26, 2017 meeting.
These details flatly contradict the case that Trump’s personal legal team has made in denying the obstruction of justice allegations. In a confidential January 29 letter to the special counsel leaked to the New York Times in June, two of Trump’s attorneys say that the President knew only that Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI. Trump believed the bureau’s investigation was over and that Flynn had been cleared, his attorneys claimed.
Setting aside how odd it would be for Trump to ask the FBI director to end a probe that he didn’t think was happening, the special counsel is reportedly in possession of testimony and documents that contradict that version of events.
This evidence includes interviews with Priebus, McGahn and several other members of the White House Office of Legal Counsel, according to Waas’ reporting. Waas said it also includes the Feb. 15, 2017 White House memo outlining a timeline of the events that led up to Flynn’s firing, as well as “underlying White House records quoted in the memo.”
