Monday, May 22, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, will invoke his constitutional right against self-incrimination and decline to hand over documents sought under subpoena by a Senate panel investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, The Associated Press has learned.
Flynn was expected to cite Fifth Amendment protections in a letter to the Senate intelligence committee, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The person spoke on condition anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to publicly discuss private interactions between Flynn and the committee.
Flynn's decision not to cooperate with the Senate committee represents a new legal complication for the expanding government and congressional inquiries into Russian interference in the presidential campaign and contacts between Trump advisers and Russian officials and representatives. Flynn is a key figure in both the FBI investigation headed by special counsel Robert Mueller and in separate Senate and House inquiries.
Trump appointed Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and top military intelligence chief, as his top national security aide in January, only to fire him less than a month later. Trump said that Flynn had misled top U.S. officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Russian officials, including Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
Flynn's letter to the Senate committee was expected to stress that his decision to invoke his constitutional protection is not an admission of wrongdoing but rather a response to the current political climate in which Democratic members of Congress are calling for his prosecution, the person said.
Legal experts had said Flynn was unlikely to turn over the documents without a grant of immunity because doing so might compel him to waive some of his constitutional protections.