Michael Flynn

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, “is revealing a brief advisory role with a firm related to a controversial data analysis company that aided the Trump campaign, the AP reports.

“The disclosure of Flynn’s link to Cambridge Analytica will come in an amended public financial filing in which the retired U.S. Army lieutenant general also discloses income that includes payments from the Trump transition team… Cambridge Analytica was heavily funded by the family of Robert Mercer, a hedge fund manager who also backed the campaign and other conservative candidates and causes.”

“All the signals are suggesting he is already cooperating with the FBI, and may have been for some time.”

— Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in a CNN interview, on former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Special counsel Robert Mueller “is expanding his probe to assume control of a grand jury investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn,” three sources told Reuters.

“The move means Mueller’s politically charged inquiry will now look into Flynn’s paid work as a lobbyist for a Turkish businessman in 2016, in addition to contacts between Russian officials and Flynn and other Trump associates during and after the Nov. 8 presidential election.”

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn will decline the Senate Intelligence committee subpoena for his testimony and invoke 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination, the AP reports.

The Washington Post notes “the Fifth Amendment protects you from making incriminatory comments about yourself — but it doesn’t protect you from things you’ve said in the past. Documents are similarly a form of past behavior to which the Fifth Amendment doesn’t apply.”

“The risk to Flynn is that the Senate committee demanding the documents could vote to hold him in contempt. If they were to do so, the full Senate would be asked to weigh in on the matter and, if the Senate agreed to hold Flynn in contempt, the matter would be referred to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington for criminal charges. In other words, Flynn could end up being convicted of a crime for withholding the documents and face prison time — regardless of what the documents say.”

“Two days after firing Michael Flynn as his national security adviser in February, President Trump told several aides and friends he should have kept him instead,” Politico reports.

Said one: “I was kind of stunned. I asked him. You fired him already. What are you going to do?”

“It has left White House officials and outside advisers perplexed: Why is Trump so determined to defend a man at the center of a federal investigation that is damaging his administration, and a man he has accused of lying to his vice president?”

“Trump doesn’t just hope that Flynn will beat the rap. Several sources close to Flynn and to the administration tell the Daily Beast that Trump has expressed his hopes that a resolution of the FBI’s investigation in Flynn’s favor might allow Flynn to rejoin the White House in some capacity—a scenario some of Trump’s closest advisers in and outside the West Wing have assured him absolutely should not happen.”

“The top Republican on the Senate intelligence panel says Michael Flynn’s lawyers say he will not honor the committee’s subpoena for documents,” the AP reports.

“The Senate intelligence committee subpoenaed former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn for documents related to the panel’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling.”

“Late last month, fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — under investigation by federal prosecutors, with his lawyer seeking immunity for him to testify to Congress — met with a small group of loyalists at a restaurant in the northern Virginia suburbs,” Yahoo News reports.

“Saddled with steep legal bills, Flynn wanted to reconnect with old friends and talk about potential future business opportunities. But one overriding question among those present were his views on the president who had fired him as national security advisor.”

“Flynn left little doubt about the answer. Not only did he remain loyal to President Trump, he indicated he and the president were still in communication. ‘I just got a message from the president to stay strong,’ Flynn said after the meal was over, according to two sources who are close to Flynn and are familiar with the conversation, which took place on April 25.”

President Trump asked the FBI director James Comey “to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February,” the New York Times reports.

Said Trump, according to the memo: “I hope you can let this go.”

“The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and FBI investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.”