iStock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — Gen. Michael Flynn may have stepped down as National Security Adviser, but the scrutiny over his communications with Russia is just beginning.
“There are questions about what, if any, contacts General Flynn had with the ambassador prior to the election,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview hours before Flynn’s resignation. “These are legitimate questions and legitimate inquiries that I think Americans need to know.”
In the Senate, Flynn is one of several figures close to President Trump who can expect to face tough questions as an intelligence committee investigation gets underway looking into Russian meddling before Election Day, the ranking Democratic overseeing the probe told ABC News.
In the House, leading Democrats said they are looking to broaden their probe into allegations of Russian meddling in the campaign.
“We in Congress need to know who authorized his actions, permitted them, and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee. “We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security.”
A Cummings aide told ABC News the congressman has asked for a full classified briefing by all relevant agencies, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, within the next 48 hours. Cummings officials also said they are monitoring reports of a Pentagon investigation into payments Flynn received for a 2015 speaking engagement in Moscow that led him to be seated at dinner next to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump’s team has said emphatically there was no communication between his campaign and the Kremlin or its agents. In January, during the transition period, then-Vice President-elect Mike Pence appeared on Sunday talk shows to address the question head on.
“Of course not,” he said on Fox News when asked about communications with Russia. “Why would there be any contact between the campaign? This is all a distraction, and it’s all part of a narrative to delegitimize the election and to question the legitimacy of (Trump’s) presidency.”
The White House has not commented on the propriety of Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador. Tuesday morning, Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, “I don’t know all the details.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan also declined Tuesday morning to answer detailed questions about Flynn’s communications with the Trump team.
“I think we need to get all of the information before we prejudge anything,” Ryan said.
Warner told ABC News he believes both political parties want to “get to the bottom” of questions about possible Russian influence during the 2016 campaign.
“These are all legitimate questions and legitimate inquiries that I think Americans need to know,” Warner said. “And the one thing that I’m finding that gives me heart here — the one thing I found on this subject is that the vast majority of senators in both parties want us to get to the bottom of this.”
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