Flynn said in his phone call with Kislyak in late December 2016 that he had “requested that Russia not escalate the situation and only respond to the U.S. sanctions in a reciprocal manner,” according to the report.
"Russia decided not to reciprocate, which eventually led senior U.S. government officials to try to understand why. ... In a subsequent call with General Flynn, Ambassador Kislyak attributed the action to General Flynn’s Request," the report reads.
Shortly after Flynn’s meeting with the FBI agents, two senior officials from the Department of Justice met with White House counsel Don McGahn in late January to discuss “the discrepancies between the transcripts of General Flynn’s calls and his statements to the FBI,” the report says.
According to court documents filed by the special counsel's team,
Flynn lied when he told investigators that he did not ask Kislyak to "refrain from escalating the situation" in response to sanctions that then-President Obama had levied on Russia in response to meddling in the election.
Mueller also charged that Flynn lied when he said he did not ask the ambassador to stymie an unrelated United Nations Security Council vote.
He is now cooperating with Mueller’s investigation into Russia's election interference, which is also examining possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
The GOP-authored report found no evidence of collusion between the campaign and the Kremlin, something that Trump has repeatedly insisted does not exist.
The document, which largely defends the president, aims to rebut a series of claims about the campaign’s ties to Russia, devoting an entire chapter, roughly 20 pages, to challenge such points.
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