The noose tightens.
1. Recall that after former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates was told recently by the White House she didn’t have clearance to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, and then, when she said she was going to do so anyway, Devin Nunes, the Republican chair, cancelled last week’s hearing.
2. One of the people Yates was planning to discuss was former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
3. Last week Flynn asked for immunity from prosecution in return for spilling some beans.
4. Now we learn that last week the White House asked Flynn to “amend” the financial disclosure form he turned in months ago before he was named Trump’s National Security Advisor.
5. Guess what? Flynn’s “amended” disclosure, released yesterday, lists income from Flynn's consulting firm, whose clients are not revealed, as well as income from several Russian firms that he had left out of his original form -- including the cyber-security firm Kaspersky Government Security Solutions.
6. Kaspersky makes some of the world’s most widely used anti-malware programs, and has documented ties to Russian intelligence agencies. The company’s founder, Eugene Kaspersky, was educated at a KGB-sponsored cryptography school, and worked as a Russian intelligence agent. An investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek in 2015 found that the company frequently used data collected from its hundreds of millions of customers to aid Russian authorities -- including the KGB’s successor, the FSB -- in criminal investigations. Since 2012, many high level positions at the company have been filled with former Russian military and intelligence agents.
7. In December, Russian prosecutors charged a manager at Kaspersky with treason, saying he and two Russian information-security officials were “interacting” with U.S. intelligence officials, according to a defense lawyer in the case.
Connect the dots.
