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FLYNN WANTS IMMUNITY
Breaking News
Former national security adviser 'has a story to tell' to Trump-Russia investigators, lawyer says
Flynn seeks immunity for testimony
Story highlights
- His lawyer said Flynn has "a story to tell"
- Aides to the House intelligence committee said they have not received any requests from him yet
(CNN)Former
National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is willing to testify before
federal and congressional investigators in their ongoing probe into
Russian meddling in the US elections, but only if he is granted
immunity, his lawyer said Thursday.
"Gen.
Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it,
should the circumstances permit. ... No reasonable person, who has the
benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a
highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against
unfair prosecution," Robert Kelner, Flynn's lawyer, said in a statement
late Thursday.
The Wall Street Journal first reported Thursday that Flynn was in talks to try to get a promise of immunity, but that nobody had agreed to his terms yet.
However,
aides to the House intelligence committee said they have not received
any requests from Flynn yet. A spokesperson for the Senate intelligence
committee declined comment Thursday evening.
The White House had no comment on the report Thursday night.
Flynn was forced to resign
as one of Trump's closest advisers after it came out that he had misled
Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russian
ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.
Three
former Trump aides who are at the center of the federal investigation
into Russia's interference in the US elections have already come forward
and said they would testify freely -- without the promise of immunity.
Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former adviser Roger Stone and
former foreign policy adviser Carter Page all said, via their lawyers,
last week that they were ready to come before House and Senate
investigators.
House investigators
have been discussing bringing Flynn in for weeks now, but they have also
expressed concerns that Flynn would plead the Fifth Amendment if forced
to testify.
Democrats, meanwhile, quickly shot around a comment Flynn made last year on MSNBC, that "when you are given immunity, that means you probably committed a crime."
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