WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers are investigating whether retired U.S. General Michael Flynn secretly promoted a U.S.-Russian project to build dozens of nuclear reactors in the Middle East after becoming President Donald Trump\u2019s first national security adviser. <\/p>\n
Representatives Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel made the disclosure in a letter they sent on Tuesday to Flynn\u2019s lawyer and executives of the private firms that developed the project. Flynn\u2019s now-defunct company worked as a consultant on it. <\/p>\n
Robert Kelner, Flynn\u2019s lawyer, declined to comment. <\/p>\n
Separately on Wednesday, NBC News reported that Flynn\u2019s son, Michael Flynn Jr., is being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his inquiry into U.S. allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Flynn worked for his father\u2019s consulting firm. <\/p>\n
A lawyer for Flynn Jr. declined to comment to NBC. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe American people deserve to know whether General Flynn was secretly promoting the private interests of these businesses while he was a (Trump) campaign adviser, transition official, or President Trump\u2019s national security adviser,\u201d Cummings and Engel said in the letter made public on Wednesday. <\/p>\n
They asked Flynn\u2019s lawyer and executives of the companies involved to provide \u201call communications\u201d they had with Flynn or other administration officials during Flynn\u2019s association with Trump. <\/p>\n
The project proposes to build 40 nuclear reactors across the Middle East that would feed a regional electric grid. The reactors would be \u201cproliferation proof,\u201d meaning they could not be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons. <\/p>\n
A promotional slide of the project said security would be provided by Rosoboron, a Russian state-owned arms exporter that is under U.S. sanctions. The sanctions imposed during the administration of former President Barack Obama soured relations between Moscow and Washington and Trump said in his election campaign that he wanted to improve those ties. <\/p>\n
Intelligence reports indicate that some Trump associates may have violated a law called the Logan Act, which prohibits unauthorized U.S. citizens from negotiating with a foreign government that has a dispute with the United States, sources familiar with the reports said. <\/p>\n
Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Engel, the senior Democrat on the House Foreign Relations Committee, asked that the documents be provided by Oct. 4. <\/p>\n
\u2018SIGNIFICANT QUESTIONS\u2019 <\/p>\n
The retired general is a central figure in Mueller\u2019s investigation into whether Trump aides colluded with Russia to boost Trump\u2019s campaign. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election and Trump has said there was no collusion. <\/p>\n
Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, fired Flynn on Feb. 13, 18 days after a top Justice Department official warned that the former Defense Intelligence Agency director could be blackmailed because Moscow knew he made misleading statements about his contacts with Russian officials. <\/p>\n
Cummings and Engel sent their letter as part of an inquiry into the renewal of Flynn\u2019s 2016 Top Secret security clearance. <\/p>\n
They said Flynn failed to disclose a June 2015 trip he made to Egypt and Israel to promote the reactor project to investigators reviewing his renewal application and that he also did not list the foreigners with whom he met. <\/p>\n
The lawmakers wrote that replies from the executives and Kelner to a June letter confirmed that Flynn made the trip. <\/p>\n
\u201cBased on your responses, it appears that General Flynn violated federal law,\u201d they wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cSince these violations carry criminal penalties of up to five years in prison, we are providing your responses to Special Counsel Robert Mueller,\u201d they wrote to Kelner, Alex G. Copson of X-Co Dynamics\/ACU Strategic Partners, and retired Rear Admiral Michael Hewitt of X-Co Dynamics\/Ironbridge Group\/IP3. All are private companies. <\/p>\n
\u201cSecond, your responses raise significant questions about whether General Flynn continued to communicate with you and others about this project after the presidential election, after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, and after General Flynn assumed the post of national security adviser – without disclosing his foreign travel or contacts,\u201d the lawmakers added. <\/p>\n
Donald Gross, counsel for ACU Strategic Partners, said the company has cooperated with the oversight committee in providing information about the project being developed along with Hewitt\u2019s IP3, and \u201cGeneral Flynn\u2019s limited involvement in June 2015.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hewitt did not respond to a LinkedIn message seeking comment. <\/p>\n
The proposed reactor project would be funded by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states and built and run by a consortium of U.S., Russian, French, Dutch, Arab, British, Ukrainian and Israeli firms. <\/p>\n
Additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington and Nathan Layne in New York; Editing by John Walcott, Peter Cooney and Grant McCool<\/p>\n
Article source: http:\/\/feeds.reuters.com\/~r\/Reuters\/PoliticsNews\/~3\/sUFXTutSe_I\/democrats-probe-whether-flynn-pushed-nuclear-project-as-trump-aide-idUSKCN1BO19G<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic lawmakers are investigating whether retired U.S. General Michael Flynn secretly promoted a U.S.-Russian project to build dozens of nuclear reactors in the Middle East after becoming President Donald Trump\u2019s first national security adviser. Representatives Elijah Cummings and Eliot Engel made the disclosure in a letter they sent on Tuesday to Flynn\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-91042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91042\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}