The intelligence community knew that Michael Flynn represented a security risk even before he was sworn in as national security adviser.
At the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — agencies responsible for keeping American secrets safe from foreign spies — career officials agreed that Mr. Flynn represented an urgent problem.
It was already known that Flynn had “inappropriately shared” classified information with foreign military leaders, leading to an Army investigation, plus the intelligence community was aware of his dinner with Vladimir Putin, his paid appearance on Russian state media, and Flynn’s unregistered lobbying for Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan. That last included Flynn’s plotting to “whisk away” a Erdogan opponent living in the United States. They were also aware of Flynn’s chaotic management that had gotten him ousted from the Obama administration.
And despite all that …
Yet nearly every day for three weeks, the new C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, sat in the Oval Office and briefed President Trump on the nation’s most sensitive intelligence — with Mr. Flynn listening. Mr. Pompeo has not said whether C.I.A. officials left him in the dark about their views of Mr. Flynn, but one administration official said Mr. Pompeo did not share any concerns about Mr. Flynn with the president.
Why did Pompeo not just keep handing Flynn information, when he knew Flynn couldn’t be trusted, but never even raise a question about it?
It wasn’t just Pompeo that was ignoring the risk from Flynn.
Time and again, the Trump administration looked the other way in the face of warning signs about Mr. Flynn. Mr. Trump entrusted him with the nation’s secrets despite knowing that he faced a Justice Department investigation over his undisclosed foreign lobbying. Even a personal warning from President Barack Obama did not dissuade him.
As with almost everything surrounding Flynn, the big question is … why? Why did Trump ignore every red flag raised about him? Why did Trump feel so deeply invested in Flynn’s issues that he asked then FBI Director James Comey to stop his investigation? Why, when Trump so readily discarded others like Paul Manafort and Carter Page, did he feel the need to keep publicly making statements about Flynn and involve himself in the case well after Flynn resigned?
Trump has offered no explanation. But perhaps it’s possible to learn something from another source.
“Either Director Pompeo had no idea what people in the C.I.A. reportedly knew about Michael Flynn, or he knew about the Justice Department’s concerns and continued to discuss America’s secrets with a man vulnerable to blackmail,” Mr. Wyden said in a statement. “I believe Director Pompeo owes the public an explanation.”