Why though? Why would a former security advisor to the US president be on the payroll of Russian companies, and state owned ones to boot. A string of documents have emerged according to which, the U.S. subsidiary of Russian cybersecurity group Kaspersky Lab was among three Russian entities that made payments of different amounts to former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The leaked documents include invoices. One of these invoices show Flynn to be on the receiving end of $33,750 from state-sponsored news source RT TV, $11,250 from Volga-Dnepr Airlines and $11,250 from Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, Inc. The common thing about all three entities? They are all Russian.
Considering that the US and Russia are usually at odds with each other, it is certainly rather odd to see a retired Lieutenant General, who has also been a former director of the defense intelligence agency, to be on the receiving end of such transactions. It would have been explainable had the payments come from a single source, say Kapersky, which designs, implements and delivers holistic cybersecurity services and solutions for the U.S. government. However, from three different entities? How do you explain that?
In his letter to the President, the Defense secretary and the FBI director, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said:
I cannot recall any time in our nation’s history when the President selected as his National Security Advisor someone who violated the Constitution by accepting tens of thousands of dollars from an agent of a global adversary that attacked our democracy. I also cannot recall a time when the President and his top advisers seemed so disinterested in the truth about that individual’s work on behalf of foreign nations—whether due to willful ignorance or knowing indifference.
Kapersky said that it paid Flynn to appear as a speaker at one of the events held by the firm. None of the other two companies have spoken out over the matter yet.
Meanwhile, Flynn’s brief career with the President’s office as his national security adviser ran into a stone wall after his involvement with Russia, and his attempts to hide the said involvement with from the Vice-president were discovered.
Flynn got off without any other repercussions back then. However, he can expect some this time around unless he can satisfactorily explain why a former member of the US’s defense and intelligent community was receiving money from different Russian firms.
