Schiff: Full Disclosure Needed on Flynn Calls to Russian Ambassador

Rep. Adam Schiff Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)

By Sandy Fitzgerald
NEWSMAX

President-elect Donald Trump’s camp should fully explain the nature of contacts made between incoming National Security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said Friday.

“We really need to have one president at a time, and I would certainly hope that no one on the Trump team was trying to undercut what President [Barack] Obama was doing when he was sanctioning Russia over their hacks and interference in our election process,” Schiff told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “Most of us, I think on a bipartisan basis, think what the president did was not only right but it was only a first step, and I would certainly hope that Gen. Flynn wasn’t in any way undercutting that or anybody else on the Trump team.”

Earlier on the program, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius who in a Thursday column broke the news about calls between Flynn and Kislyak, said there were several calls made on Dec. 29, when the sanctions were ordered.

However, he said it is not clear if the two discussed the sanctions, which could have been a violation of an 18th century law, the Logan Act that bars unauthorized citizens from brokering deals with foreign governments involved in disputes with the United States.

“The Trump transition team did not respond to my request for comment last night, but they did respond today, and they offered their own timeline, which is contemporaneous but not identical,” said Ignatius.

He said campaign spokesman Sean Spicer reported the calls were actually made on Dec. 28, the day before the sanctions were announced, and that they discussed arrangements for a conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin after the inauguration.

Schiff said he does not think the calls will fall under the Logan Act, because it would be difficult to endorse “and there are probably some significant constitutional questions about how that would even be done.”

In other matters, Schiff said he thinks it is appropriate for an inspector general report to be done concerning FBI Director James Comey and the statements he made concerning Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just before the November election.

“I say hats off to my colleague, [Rep] Elijah Cummings, [D-Maryland] for making the request for this investigation some months ago,” said Schiff. “It now has bipartisan support. We had a very serious and I believe very consequential decision by the director of the FBI to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation and in violation of the department’s longstanding policy.”

He said he hopes the investigation also involves the numerous leaks from the FBI about either one of the campaigns.

Schiff also commented on Trump’s tweets concerning the election and about an incriminating report about an unsubstantiated Russian dossier about him.

“My reaction is regrettably you cannot rely on anything the president-elect says in his tweets, certainly not on this subject, but on many others as well,” said Schiff. “This is, after all, president-elect who tweeted that millions of illegal immigrants voted and that’s why he didn’t win the popular vote, but it’s all the more disturbing here because he’s used Twitter to attack the intelligence community. He actually cites Russia and Julian Assange as sources of information before he cites his own intelligence community.”

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http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/adam-schiff-disclosure-michael-flynn-calls/2017/01/13/id/768485/