Handwritten notes taken by former FBI agent Peter Strzok revealed that President Barack Obama directed the FBI to continue investigating Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Flynn just weeks before he was to become President Trump’s national security adviser, in a meeting during which Vice President Joe Biden suggested that Flynn violated the Logan Act.
Up until now, it had been unclear exactly how involved Obama was in the FBI investigation of Trump’s national security adviser.
Strzok’s notes are believed to have been taken on January 4, 2017, the apparent date of a White House Oval Office meeting with Obama, Biden, FBI Director James Comey, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and National Security Adviser Susan Rice.
The notes show, according to a court filing, that those officials discussed transcripts of Flynn’s private calls with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and how to proceed against Flynn.
Obama himself directed that “the right people” investigate Flynn.
The notes also show that Biden raised the prospect that Flynn committed a violation of the Logan Act — an obscure 1799 law that prohibited private citizens from conducting diplomacy on behalf of the U.S. and has never been successfully prosecuted in court.
The filing noted that the potential Logan Act violation “became an admitted pretext to investigate General Flynn.”
Previously released court documents revealed that the FBI had been moving to close its investigation of Flynn until Strzok personally intervened, on the basis that Flynn had calls with Kislyak.
Rice had memorialized the Oval Office meeting in an email to herself on the last day of the Obama administration. According to her email, the meeting took place on January 5, 2017, but the recent filing shows that it may have taken place on January 4, 2017, instead.
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