Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday he is “inclined more than ever” to believe retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn did not intentionally mislead him about his conversations with a Russian envoy, which was a reason cited by President Trump for asking him to resign as national security adviser in early 2017.
He made the comments after the FBI records released on Thursday have been touted by Flynn's lawyer, Sidney Powell, as exculpatory evidence heretofore concealed from the defense team. They show that now-fired FBI agent Peter Strzok and others in the FBI’s leadership stopped the bureau from closing its investigation into Flynn in early January 2017 after investigators had uncovered “no derogatory information” on him. Emails from later that month show Strzok, along with then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page and several others, sought out ways to continue investigating Flynn.
“I think Gen. Michael Flynn is a patriotic American who served with great distinction in the armed forces of the United States. And I’m deeply troubled by the revelations of what appear to have been investigative abuse by officials in the Justice Department — and we are going to continue to look into that very carefully. But my respect for Gen. Flynn personally, for his service to the country, is undiminished,” Pence told reporters. “And I’m inclined more than ever to believe that what he communicated to me back during the transition leading to our inauguration was unintentional and that he was not attempting to misrepresent facts." ……..More
