A member of the House Oversight Committee expressed his outrage Tuesday night after the leaders of his committee revealed that President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn failed to properly disclose payments from Russia and Turkey, saying there is no doubt Flynn broke the law and that he could be looking at years behind bars.
Asked about Flynn during an interview on CNN’s “Erin Burnett Outfront,” Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia said, “There’s no question he committed a crime.”
“The form he had to fill out,” Connolly said, “specifically says you must answer completely and truthfully. He did neither, it was not complete and it wasn’t truthful, so there’s no question about a violation of law.”
Connolly pointed out that it is a federal felony to knowingly withhold information on the form, and said the key questions now are, “Was it willful? Was it accidental? You mean you just forgot that you made $70,000 from an appearance in RT in Russia and an appearance in Turkey? That’s hard to believe.”
The congressman said those answers won’t be known until the White House fully complies with the Flynn investigation and turns over any and all requested documents.
Connolly warned that Flynn could be looking at up to five years in prison over this, which he called the “specified penalty for a federal felony like this.”
He also took press secretary Sean Spicer to task for refusing to say whether the White House believed Flynn broke the law. Spicer said, “That would be a question for him and a law enforcement agency, whether or not, I don’t know what he filled out or what he did or did not do. That all happened, he filled that form out prior to coming here. So it would be up to the committee and other authorities to look at that. I don’t know.”
Reacting to Spicer’s comments, Connolly said, “That’s Sean Spicer doing a bad imitation of Melissa McCarthy” from “Saturday Night Live.”