The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said the FBI’s original interview summary with retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is “missing.”
California Rep. Devin Nunes said top FBI officials and other sources told lawmakers behind closed doors that the bureau did not believe Flynn lied when interviewed by two agents in January 2017.
“The original report that was used to brief the United States Congress, that report is missing. It’s gone, poof, we can’t find it,” Nunes told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.
Nunes said he was shocked to learn later that leaks to the media saying Flynn was “being busted” for lying about his contacts with a Russian envoy during the presidential transition period.
Flynn, who briefly served as President Trump’s first national security adviser, pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the United States but later declared his innocence and argued he was set up by the FBI.
The Justice Department filed to dismiss its criminal case against Flynn on Thursday, leaving it up to a federal judge overseeing the case to make the final determination on whether to dismiss it.
The Justice Department said in a court filing that after reviewing newly disclosed materials, it agreed with Flynn’s attorneys that his interview with the FBI should never have taken place because his conversations with the Russian diplomat were “entirely appropriate.”
Sidney Powell, Flynn’s lead attorney, said later on Sunday Morning Futures that the defense team has the raw notes from Flynn’s interview but not the FBI summary, known as a “302,” which was what Nunes said is nowhere to be found.
Both Nunes and Powell also noted that text messages between former FBI officials Peter Strzok, one of the agents who interviewed Flynn, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page show they “doctored” the summary.
