ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CN) – Amid the fallout of President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas seeking the business records of known associates of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Looking for business records relevant to the ongoing investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s election, the subpoenas could be an indication of escalating activity in the FBI’s search into possible Trump campaign associate ties with the Kremlin.

The subpoenas were issued by U.S. Attorney Dana Boente in the last several weeks from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Va. The developments were first reported by CNN.

The people who received the subpoenas are known to have worked with Flynn on various contracts after he was ousted from the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014. Flynn once served as director of the agency.

Boente was only recently appointed as acting assistant attorney general for the U.S. Justice Department’s national security division, which is responsible for oversight into the FBI’s Russia investigation.

Robert Kelner, Flynn’s attorney, did not return a call for comment Wednesday.

News of the subpoenas came amid other shockwaves rocking Washington this week, namely the firing of FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday night.

As details unfolded on Wednesday, anonymous sources claimed Comey sought additional funds and resources for the agency’s investigation into Russia’s meddling. The sources also reportedly said Comey disclosed his request both to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and to Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who wrote a memo that served as the basis for Comey’s firing.

Comey has been invited to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee next Tuesday but he has not yet confirmed if he will attend. The hearing is likely to be classified.

Trump did not say Wednesday who Comey’s replacement would be or if they would lead the ongoing Russian investigation, but the president said on Twitter that he will find a new director “who will do a far better job, bringing back the spirit and prestige of the FBI.”

The former FBI director confirmed last week that inquiries into Flynn were a piece of the larger investigation. CNN reported on Tuesday night that investigators were exploring possible wrongdoing in Flynn’s disclosure of client payments tied to foreign governments including Turkey and Russia.

Flynn resigned in February. It was eventually discovered that he failed to disclose the nature of his communications with Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to Washington.

Investigators have also reported that Flynn may have broken the law when he omitted a $45,000 paid appearance fee he collected for a television stint in Moscow promoting Russia Today, a Russian government-funded news outlet.

Kelner has previously defended Flynn, saying that his client is not hiding anything and that, in fact, he briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency both before and after his trip to Russia. </s> Washington (CNN)Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn seeking business records, as part of the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year's election, according to people familiar with the matter. CNN learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

The subpoenas represent the first sign of a significant escalation of activity in the FBI's broader investigation begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.

 The subpoenas issued in recent weeks by the US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia, were received by associates who worked with Flynn on contracts after he was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

 Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to comment. The US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, the Justice Department and the FBI also declined to comment.

Investigators have been looking into possible wrongdoing in how Flynn handled disclosures about payments from clients tied to foreign governments including Russia and Turkey, US officials briefed on the matter have told CNN.

 The Flynn inquiry is one piece of the broader investigation, which FBI Director James Comey testified in a Senate hearing last week is led jointly by the Alexandria US Attorney's Office and the Justice Department's National Security Division. </s> Washington (CNN) Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn seeking business records, as part of the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year's election, according to people familiar with the matter. CNN learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

The subpoenas represent the first sign of a significant escalation of activity in the FBI's broader investigation begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.

The subpoenas issued in recent weeks by the US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia, were received by associates who worked with Flynn on contracts after he was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to comment. The US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, the Justice Department and the FBI also declined to comment.

Read More </s> Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn seeking business records, as part of the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter. CNN learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey.

The subpoenas represent the first sign of a significant escalation of activity in the FBI’s broader investigation begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign associates and Russia.

The subpoenas issued in recent weeks by the US Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, Virginia, were received by associates who worked with Flynn on contracts after he was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to comment. The US Attorney’s Office in Alexandria, the Justice Department and the FBI also declined to comment.

Investigators have been looking into possible wrongdoing in how Flynn handled disclosures about payments from clients tied to foreign governments including Russia and Turkey, US officials briefed on the matter have told CNN.

The Flynn inquiry is one piece of the broader investigation, which FBI Director James Comey testified in a Senate hearing last week is led jointly by the Alexandria US Attorney’s Office and the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

Flynn was forced to resign as Trump’s national security advisor in February after failing to disclose the nature of phone discussions with Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak.

Congressional investigators have also accused Flynn of possibly breaking the law by not properly disclosing a $45,000 payment for an appearance he made at an event in Moscow to celebrate Russia Today. The Russian government-funded news outlet that US intelligence agencies say played a key role in disseminating stolen emails intended to damage the candidacy of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, has said that Flynn was not hiding anything, noting that he briefed the DIA on his trip to Russia.

“As has previously been reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of DoD, extensively regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by DIA concerning the trip during those briefings,” Kelner said in a statement

In March, Flynn’s lobbying firm registered as a foreign agent for the Turkish government, under a $500,000 contract.

Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, emerged in 2015 as a strident critic of the Obama administration, which fired him. He built a close relationship last year with then-candidate Trump and became a frequent Trump campaign surrogate before assuming a brief tenure as national security advisor.

US Attorney Dana Boente, whose office issued the subpoenas, is also leading the investigation into WikiLeaks and the effort to bring possible charges against the group’s founder, Julian Assange. Boente is also acting as head of the Justice Department’s national security section.

The FBI interviewed Flynn about the December calls with Kislyak and determined that he wasn’t intentionally trying to be deceptive about the nature of what was discussed, according to US officials briefed on the investigation. But investigators have been investigating Flynn’s business ties after he left the government and before he joined the Trump administration. </s> Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas seeking business records from people who worked with former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn when he was a private citizen, CNN reported on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON: Federal prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas seeking business records from people who worked with former U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn when he was a private citizen, CNN reported on Tuesday.

Citing people familiar with the matter, CNN said the subpoenas were issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia. They targeted people who worked with Flynn on contracts after he was pushed out of his job as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014, it reported.

Flynn later joined the Trump campaign but was fired as the White House national security adviser by President Donald Trump in February after he failed to tell the truth about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, did not respond immediately to a request for comment. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department does not comment on the existence of ongoing investigations.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into allegations Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election to benefit Trump, as well as possible links to the Trump campaign.

Russia has repeatedly denied interfering in the U.S. election and the Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia.

Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, saying he had lost confidence in Comey over his handling of an election-year email scandal involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Flynn, a retired general, has emerged as a central figure in the Russian probes.

Investigators have been looking into whether Flynn properly disclosed payments from clients with links to foreign governments, including Russia and Turkey, CNN said. </s> In making Dana Boente acting attorney general, President Donald Trump has elevated a longtime federal prosecutor best known for his handling of public corruption cases.

Boente, a 31-year veteran of the Justice Department, most recently oversaw the prosecution of former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell - a case ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court. Previously, Boente oversaw the government's cases against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., and former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, D.

Lawyers who have known Boente, who was U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said he has a reputation for being tough but even handed. While he has not been vocal about his political views, they said, he would not have agreed to be thrust into the role of defending Trump's controversial executive order banning some migrants unless he believed it was legally sound.

"Dana was very circumspect about his politics," said former assistant U.S. attorney Gene Rossi, now a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. "I never saw Dana in the 22 years I worked with him make what I considered to a political decision . . . He will try his best to enforce what he thinks is the law."

But Rossi added, "If he thought that the executive order was illegal, I doubt very seriously he would have taken the position of acting attorney general."

"I don't think he would do it if he felt that it was morally wrong to do it," Zwerling said. "I believe he looked inside himself and decided he could morally and legally defend the position. I don't know how he votes, but he's no liberal. The Eastern District of Virginia is a very tough jurisdiction and he ran it as a very tough jurisdiction."

The Trump administration said Boente, who replaced fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, was sworn in about 9 p.m. Monday.

In an interview, Boente noted his office already had been supporting the president's order in a challenge brought in Virginia federal court.

"I was enforcing it this afternoon," Boente said. "Our career department employees were defending the action in court, and I expect that's what they'll do tomorrow, appropriately and properly."

Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid Justice Center, who filed a complaint on behalf of two Yemenese men sent away from Dulles under the executive order, said he had spoken with Boente about the case by phone Sunday and Monday.

The U.S. Attorney's job in the Eastern District of Virginia is an important and high-profile one. The Eastern District is home to the CIA and the Pentagon, and its prosecutors often handle terrorism cases. The office has about 300 lawyers and other employees working in Alexandria, Richmond, Norfolk and Newport News.

Boente was sworn in to head the office in February of 2016 but had served in that post on an interim basis since replacing Neil MacBride in late 2013.

When he was sworn in, then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch called Boente one of the department's "consummate utility players" and said he was "one you could always count on to be there for you."

Under Boente's leadership, prosecutors won corruption convictions against McDonnell, R, and his wife, Maureen, only to see those decisions overturned by the Supreme Court. Boente's office pushed to retry the couple; they were overruled by higher-ups at the Justice Department.

Prosecutors working for Boente also convicted CIA leaker Jeffrey Sterling under the Espionage Act and television news analyst Wayne Simmons for pretending to be a CIA agent. Boente has overseen ten prosecutions of Americans accused of supporting the Islamic State, eight of which have resulted in convictions. The remaining two are set for trial this year.

In the past several years, Boente's office has also aggressively targeted opioid dealers implicated in fatal overdoses, taking on what Boente has described as a worsening epidemic in Virginia. "I'm very concerned that we haven't seen the worst of this," Boente said at a forum late last year in Loudoun County. "If you don't know someone who's had a problem with addiction, you will."

Boente was nominated to lead the U.S. Attorney's Office in Virginia by former President Barack Obama on Oct. 8, 2015, and confirmed by the senate two months later.

Before he became a U.S. attorney, Boente worked in the tax division and as an interim attorney in both the Eastern District of Virginia and the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Boente, who is from Carlinville, Illinois, lives in Northern Virginia with his wife. The couple have grown children and grandchildren.

Boente said he presumes he will serve until Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is confirmed. </s> Once again the New York Times is getting out ahead of the story to reveal Attorney General Bill Barr has instructed U.S. Attorney John Durham to review the origins of the 2016 DOJ and FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign. [Durham Background Here]

The appointment looks like a way to keep the sensitive inquiry within Barr’s control as opposed to appointing a special counsel. John H Durham, the U.S. attorney from Connecticut, has handled previous investigations into the intelligence community.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter, a move that President Trump has long called for but that could anger law enforcement officials who insist that scrutiny of the Trump campaign was lawful. John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees.

His inquiry is the third known investigation focused on the opening of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign into possible ties between Russia’s election interference and Trump associates. The department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is separately examining investigators’ use of wiretap applications and informants and whether any political bias against Mr. Trump influenced investigative decisions. And John W. Huber, the United States attorney in Utah, has been reviewing aspects of the Russia investigation. His findings have not been announced. […] Mr. Durham, who was nominated by Mr. Trump in 2017 and has been a Justice Department lawyer since 1982, has conducted special investigations under administrations of both parties. Attorney General Janet Reno asked Mr. Durham in 1999 to investigate the F.B.I.’s handling of a notorious informant: the organized crime leader James (Whitey) Bulger. In 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey assigned Mr. Durham to investigate the C.I.A.’s destruction of videotapes in 2005 showing the torture of terrorism suspects. A year later, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. expanded Mr. Durham’s mandate to also examine whether the agency broke any laws in its abuses of detainees in its custody. (read more)

Again, cautious optimism this appointment is a step in the right direction.

We would be remiss if we didn’t note the prior DOJ head-fake when U.S. Attorney John Laush was assigned to review and deliver documents to congress. That effort resulted in absolutely nothing; the documents were never produced; the redactions were never removed; and the corrupt institutional schemes were unfazed by Laush’s assignment.

It would seem like most of the investigative material Mr. Durham might need is already present in the accumulated files from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Keep an eye open to see if John H Durham is given a staff, investigative resources and/or a budget therein. If this is a genuinely motivated effort there should be visible activity.

This better-damn-well-not be another years-long investigation, specifically structured and coordinated to extend the tick-tock timeline of investigative inquiry into another 2020 election year, while the deep state institutional protectors say: “Trust Durham“.

UPDATE: Prior letter from Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows to U.S. Attorney John H Durham in January of 2019, about the October 18, 2018, testimony from former FBI legal counsel James Baker where Baker’s lawyers identified Durham as a prosecutor investigating the claims of Baker leaking to media. </s> Former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn will decline to comply with a subpoena from the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, according to media reports on Monday.

Flynn will invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal and Fox News reported, citing sources close to Flynn. The committee had first requested documents from Flynn in an April 28 letter, but the retired lieutenant general had declined to cooperate with the committee’s request. </s> WASHINGTON D.C. — Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller has launched a grand jury in his investigation of Russian influence in the 2016 election, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, the Journal said Mueller had impaneled the grand jury in Washington, where his team of investigators continue to look into whether President Donald Trump or any of his campaign associates colluded with Russia during the presidential contest.

The move would signal a new step in the investigation, which Trump has lambasted as a “witch hunt.” Trump has denied any collusion between his team and the Russians. US intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia attempted to sway the presidential contest in Trump’s favor.

In May, CNN reported that federal prosecutors had issued grand jury subpoenas to some associates of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the ongoing FBI probe into the Russian meddling.

Mueller took over that investigation in mid-May.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia, through U.S. Attorney Dana Boente, issues subpoenas to former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn to assess the extent of his ties to Russia.