This piece was originally published on Just Security, an online forum for analysis of U.S. national security law and policy.
When President Donald Trump allegedly tried to stop the FBI investigation of his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, was Trump aware of Flynn’s meetings with Turkish officials? If so, it could significantly increase the president’s exposure to political liability and legal wrongdoing involving obstruction of justice.
On Valentine’s Day, the president asked FBI Director James Comey if he could see his “way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” according to Comey’s congressional testimony and contemporaneous notes (Trump has denied this, but Donald Trump Jr. has essentially confirmed it). What would Trump have wanted Comey to let go exactly? So far the media has focused on federal investigators’ probe at the time into whether Flynn lied to the FBI. But at the same time there was also a federal investigation into Flynn’s work on behalf of Turkey—and the White House knew about it. We also now know that on Sept. 19, 2016, and in mid-December, Flynn reportedly met with senior Turkish officials, and is alleged to have discussed the prospect of kidnapping and secretly removing a U.S. resident, cleric Fethullah Gülen, from the United States into Turkey’s custody. If Trump knew about the Turkey meetings—or what might have been discussed—at the time of the Feb. 14 exchange with Comey, that would raise a “different order of problem for the president,” Ben Wittes exclaimed on Lawfare’s podcast. Wittes is right.
Here are a number of data points on the timeline, as well as statements provided to Just Security by former CIA Director James Woolsey’s spokesperson, that might clarify what the White House knew and when it knew it.
It is not only important to understand what the president knew on Feb. 14, but also what he became aware of in the weeks and months afterward. That’s because Trump reportedly took additional steps to try to stop the investigation of Flynn following the Oval Office meeting with Comey. A crucial part of the timeline, for example, is the reported efforts of the White House to stop the investigation of Flynn in late March 2017 and the revelation of Flynn’s September 2016 meeting with Turkish officials around that same time.
Even if the president had no knowledge of the potential kidnapping meetings, if he tried to obstruct the federal investigation into Flynn’s work as an agent of a foreign government (Turkey), it would significantly raise the prospect of legal and political liability beyond his potential liability for obstructing the Russia-related investigation.
Reviewing this timeline, the mounting evidence of Flynn having been a paid foreign agent for Turkey seems likely to have figured into Trump’s calculus in relieving him of duty. The White House knew of the threatening nature of an active federal investigation of Flynn’s work on behalf of Turkey when the president allegedly asked Comey to “let Flynn go” on Feb. 14. Finally, the information contained in Flynn’s filing as a foreign agent in early March was likely on the minds of White House senior officials when they reportedly attempted to get top intelligence officials to intervene with Comey to drop the Flynn investigation that month.
These claims may sound strong when stacked together. But they are also each qualified and relatively modest all things considered. That’s because we don’t know the full picture. Even if Flynn’s foreign agent filings were on senior officials’ minds, they may have acted for other reasons, for example. And when they reportedly asked top intelligence officials to get Comey to halt the Flynn investigation, maybe they limited their inquiry to the Russia-related part. All that said, there’s a mountain of information here that raise serious questions and lend circumstantial support to our conclusions.
I. When Did the Flynn-Turkey Federal Investigation Start?
When did the Justice Department start looking into Flynn’s ties to Turkey? It may have started once former CIA Director James Woolsey alerted U.S. officials to the September 2016 meeting around that time. Woolsey’s spokesperson clarified in a story for NBC that the FBI was already “in communication” with Woolsey before the matter was taken over by Robert Mueller in May. More importantly, in a letter dated Nov. 30, the Justice Department notified Flynn that it was scrutinizing his lobbying work on behalf of the Turkish government. That appears to be a step shy of an open investigation. But by Jan. 4 at the latest, the Justice Department was reportedly investigating the matter to the point that Flynn was told of the investigation. In short, we know generally when the FBI started looking into Flynn’s Turkey lobbying work, but we still don’t know when the FBI became aware of the alleged kidnapping plot.
Flynn also came under a different criminal investigation sometime after Jan. 24, with respect to his statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. On Jan. 24, Flynn was interviewed by FBI. It is after that point that Flynn reportedly came under criminal investigation for potentially lying to the FBI about whether he discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador.
At an unknown date, Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, also became a subject of the federal investigation into Russia, NBC reported in September. Mueller is now also looking into what role Flynn’s son may have played in efforts involving Turkey, including the December meeting, NBC reported more recently.
II. When Did President Trump Try to Intercede?
There are three relevant points on the timeline.
1. Feb. 14: Trump speaks directly to Comey.
Flynn resigns on Feb. 13. The following day, is when Trump allegedly asks Comey, in a private one-on-one conversation, if the FBI director could see his “way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” according to Comey’s contemporaneous notes and his prepared congressional testimony on June 8. Comey testified that the president “added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.”
2. Mid-to-late March: Trump and White House officials reportedly try to intervene indirectly via senior intelligence officials.
On March 22, the president reportedly asks Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, in a private conversation, to intervene with Comey to get the FBI to stop investigating Flynn. Coats reportedly “discussed the conversation with other officials and decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested would be inappropriate.” Also around that same time, “senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn,” according to the Washington Post.
3. May 9: Trump fires Comey.
III. What President Trump and His Team Knew About Flynn-Turkey and When They Knew It.
August–November 2016: On Aug. 9, 2016, Flynn’s firm signs a contract with a Dutch company, Inovo, which is owned by Ekim Alptekin, the chairman of the Turkish-American Business Council. Alptekin is widely reported to have ties to the Turkish government, including his having helped to organize Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 2016 visit to Washington. Alptekin’s company paid Flynn’s firm more than $500,000 for work performed from August to November 2016. The Associated Press reported, “Alptekin, the Turkish businessman, has denied having any ties to Erdogan’s government.”
Sept. 19, 2016: Flynn participates in a meeting with senior Turkish officials in which the group reportedly discusses the option of kidnapping the cleric Gülen and removing him from the United States, according to a Wall Street Journal story published in March. Alptekin, who reportedly invited Flynn, is present at the meeting. Woolsey, who was affiliated with Flynn’s firm at the time, was present for part of the meeting’s discussion, the contents of which he said greatly disturbed him. Woolsey thought the proposal for Gülen would “pretty clearly be a violation of law,” and he reported it to “several people,” including U.S. government officials at the time.
Woolsey’s spokesman, Jonathan Franks, told Just Security that Woolsey did not inform members of the Trump campaign about the September meeting. An important question is whether—either through the “several people” Woolsey informed, through Flynn, or through others—Trump or his inner circle learned of the September meeting.
Sept. 19, 2016: On the same day as his Turkish meeting, Flynn joins Trump and Jeff Sessions in a meeting with Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-sisi.
Sept. 30, 2016: Flynn’s firm publicly registers as a lobbyist for Alptekin’s company Inovo. (This is not the same as registering as a foreign agent.)
Sometime between Nov. 8, 2016, and Jan. 20: Flynn’s personal lawyer alerted the Trump transition team prior to the inauguration that Flynn might register as a foreign agent of Turkey. Don McGahn, the campaign’s top lawyer and now White House Counsel, was reportedly among those told at the time.
Nov. 8, 2016: The Hill publishes an op-ed by Flynn titled, “Our Ally Turkey Is in Crisis and Needs Our Support.” It calls for orienting several aspects of U.S. foreign policy toward Turkey’s interests. In reference to the cleric Gülen, Flynn writes:
From Turkey’s point of view, Washington is harboring Turkey’s Osama bin Laden. … We need to see the world from Turkey’s perspective. What would we have done if right after 9/11 we heard the news that Osama bin Laden lives in a nice villa at a Turkish resort? … We should not provide him safe haven. In this crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real friends are.
Nov. 10, 2016: President Barack Obama privately warns Trump about Flynn during their Oval Office meeting two days after the election. At least one person familiar with the meeting told Politico in May that “Obama forcefully told Trump to steer clear of Flynn.” There are no publicly available details about why exactly Obama warned Trump and whether Obama stated specific concerns about Flynn.
Sometime prior to Nov. 11, 2016: Chris Christie, who headed the transition team until this date, subsequently said he directly warned Trump about Flynn. “I didn’t think that he was someone who would bring benefit to the President or to the administration, and I made that very clear to candidate Trump, and I made it very clear to President-elect Trump,” Christie said in May. Politico reports that as chief of the transition team, Christie “mounted a campaign against Flynn for the national security adviser job.” Christie told associates as early as August 2016 of his concerns about Flynn.
Nov. 11, 2016: The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross publishes a detailed story titled, “Trump’s Top Military Adviser Is Lobbying for Obscure Company With Ties to Turkish Government.” It is an exposé that includes Dutch business records and other information tying Alptekin to Flynn’s firm and work on behalf of the government of Turkey, and it also notes that Flynn failed to disclose any of this information in his op-ed for the Hill.
Nov. 15, 2016: Flynn’s contract with Alptekin is terminated.
Nov. 18: Flynn is named national security adviser. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sends a letter to Vice President–elect Mike Pence, in his capacity as chairman of the Trump transition team, warning about conflicts created by Flynn’s work on behalf of Turkey, and Flynn’s firm being hired by Alptekin’s company. The transition team’s office of legislative affairs sends Cummings a receipt that confirmed they received the letter and pledged to “review your letter carefully.” Cummings does not just send a quiet letter. He issues a press release with the text of the letter and receives major media coverage.
Later, Pence denies ever receiving the letter. On March 9, Pence states in a Fox News interview that Flynn’s registration with FARA is “the first I heard of [Flynn’s Turkey-related lobbying work] and I think it is an affirmation of the president’s decision to ask Gen. Flynn to resign.” Likewise, on May 19, Pence’s office told NBC News that “Rep. Cummings’ letter did not reach the vice president.”
Nov. 19: Trump campaign lawyer, William McGinley, holds a conference call with members of the Flynn firm “seeking more information” about the group’s foreign work on Turkey and “to review the particulars of Flynn’s piece in The Hill,” according to the New York Times and according to the New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle.
Dec. 9: Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire send a letter to FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Office of Personnel Management Acting Director Beth Cobert calling for a re-evaluation of Flynn’s security clearance. They cite his “repeated mishandling of classified information,” his paid visit to Moscow, and his business interests as CEO of Flynn Intel Group.
They write:
[Flynn’s] ongoing business relationship of Flynn Intel Group, owned by General Flynn and operated by his son, creates the potential for pressure, coercion, and exploitation by foreign agents.
The letter receives significant media coverage.
Mid-December: In a second meeting with Turkish government representatives, Flynn is alleged to have discussed the idea of he and his son helping to forcibly remove Gülen and deliver the cleric to Turkish custody using a private jet, in a plot that would have paid the Flynns $15 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. (The Journal cites “people with knowledge of discussions Mr. Flynn had with Turkish representatives.”) Michael Flynn’s lawyers dispute the story.
Jan. 4: Flynn reportedly tells the transition team, including McGahn, that he is under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey.
After Jan. 20: Flynn’s lawyers are reported to have had “a second conversation with Trump lawyers … and made clear the national security adviser would indeed be registering [as a foreign agent] with the Justice Department,” the AP reported.
Feb. 7: Trump and Turkish President Erdogan have their first telephone call in which they discuss a range of policy issues. Flynn is still national security adviser at this point.
Feb. 13: A PAC aligned with the Democratic Party, the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, files a report with the National Security Agency alleging that Flynn has sought “to influence the White House on behalf of Turkey and its president, Recep Erdogan, while failing to register as an agent with the Department of Justice.”
Feb.13: Flynn resigns after widespread reports that he lied to the White House about discussions with the Russian ambassadors, falsehoods that were publicly repeated by Pence.
Feb. 14: Trump allegedly asks Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn.
March 7: Flynn retroactively files as a foreign agent of the government of Turkey in the first week of March. In a filing on March 7, Flynn’s firm reports the Sept. 19, 2016, meeting with senior Turkish officials (describing the event as “for the purpose of understanding better the political climate in Turkey at the time”). The document also states that Flynn’s firm was invited to the September meeting by Alptekin. In a separate filing, Flynn’s firm states that Alptekin’s Dutch company, Inovo, paid Flynn’s firm more than $500,000 for work performed from August to November 2016, which the firm said “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.”
It is hard to believe that the Flynn filings of his Turkey work were not on the minds of the White House when they allegedly engaged in efforts later that month to try to get intelligence officials to intervene with Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.
Around March 24: The Wall Street Journal publishes a news report and exclusive video interview with Woolsey in which he publicly discloses that the Sept. 19, 2016, meeting included the discussion of kidnapping and removing the cleric from the United States.
Did Trump and White House officials know before the Wall Street Journal story went public? The story does not indicate whether the White House was contacted prior to publication.
Why is this timing vitally important? As we discussed earlier, on March 22, Trump allegedly held his private conversation with Coats and Pompeo to see if they could help get Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, and apparently around that same time in March, senior White House officials reached out to top intelligence officials for the same purpose. It would expose the White House politically and legally if it were to come out that they knew about the September meeting and that it included the kidnapping discussion.
Again, Woolsey’s spokesman, Jonathan Franks, told Just Security that Woolsey did not inform the White House about the September meeting before the publication of the Wall Street Journal story in March.
Early April: Flynn’s associates receive grand jury subpoenas, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking business records and communications involving clients tied to the Turkish government, according to CNN and the Wall Street Journal. The subpoenas show that federal prosecutors are investigating arrangements involving Flynn and Alptekin, according to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Reuters, which each obtained copies of the subpoenas.
May 9: Trump fires Comey. CNN reports that it “learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey.” The Wall Street Journal also raised questions about the timing of the subpoenas:
The subpoena that the Journal reviewed was sent out in early April, nearly a month before Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey, raising questions about whether the president learned the investigation into Mr. Flynn was escalating before firing Mr. Comey, who was overseeing the probe.
One final note, the White House and senior officials have repeatedly denied knowledge of Flynn’s connections to Turkey or work he did on behalf of Turkey. Those statements were later revealed to be false. Shortly after Flynn filed as a foreign agent, for example, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on March 9 that Trump was not aware that Flynn acted as a foreign agent when he appointed him as national security adviser. Within 24 hours, the Associated Press reported that Flynn’s lawyers informed the Trump transition team that Flynn might have to file as a foreign agent. When confronted with the AP story the following day, Spicer essentially downplayed the significance of the lawyer’s inquiry:
Q: Could you clear up what appears to be some tension between what you said yesterday about when the administration or the president was made aware of General Flynn’s foreign lobbying ties and the AP reporting today that the transition team was informed of Flynn’s potential need to register?
Spicer: So there’s a big difference between when he filed, which was the other day—two days ago—and what happened then. What the AP is reporting, just so we’re clear, is that a personal lawyer of General Flynn’s contacted a transition lawyer and asked for guidance on what he should or should not do.
But why would it take Flynn’s formally filing as a foreign agent for Trump and the transition team to be aware of Flynn’s activities? We now know that Flynn told the transition team on Jan. 4 that he was under federal investigation for his work on behalf of Turkey. That was reported by the New York Times in May. Recall as well the conference call on Nov. 19, 2016, when Trump campaign lawyer and now White House Cabinet secretary, William McGinley, spoke with members of the Flynn firm to obtain information about the group’s work for Turkey. That too was reported after Spicer’s March 9 and March 10 press conferences. Why did the White House deny it?
More from Just Security:
Ability to Charge Flynn Strengthens Case of Obstruction of Justice Against Trump
Could Trump Have Obstructed Justice if a Grand Jury Hadn’t Convened Yet?
