Its been reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee -- one of three bodies investigating Trump's Russia connections -- has rejected former national security advisor to the Trump White House's request for immunity. General Michael Flynn requested immunity this week in return for his testimony about those connections. Flynn resigned in February under media pressure over reports that he held phone conversations with Russian officials last December, to discuss the lifting of sanctions. NBC News says that a congressional aide who is apparently close to the discussions has said that their response to Flynn's lawyer was that immunity was not on the table and that the request was "wildly preliminary."
Another aide reportedly said that the committee was not receptive to his request at this time.
Whether this forces Flynn to seek a different approach to providing testimony is unclear. But ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrat Adam Schiff has said that the Department of Justice's (DOJ) interest in Michael Flynn's testimony could take precedence over Congress' wish to speak with him, which puts into question what could become of whatever information Michael Flynn would provide.
DOJ could try to influence Flynn
While Adam Schiff is not part of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he did describe how long the process would take with whatever documents are part of current pending investigations to sort out whether they could provide immunity or not, before they could consider it.
Much of the reporting on Michael Flynn's immunity request are about when he himself accused Hillary Clinton aides of being seen as guilty by requesting it last year. The same criticism applied to Donald Trump who as a candidate also launched the same attack in his rallies, to contrast a recent tweet which said that Flynn should seek immunity.
But with Adam Schiff pointing to the DOJ as perhaps getting access to Flynn before the Senate Intelligence Committee does, it presents a new threat to his testimony by a department that is very much run by loyal Trump surrogate Jeff Sessions. As Blasting News reported last month, the DOJ -- in league with Trump's White House, purged the Department of 46 prosecutors who were still left over from the Obama administration.
It's been widely reported that President Obama tried to protect intelligence reports from their investigation over Trump's connections to Russia before leaving office. The new attorney general Jeff Sessions has had to recuse himself from any investigation the Russia controversy.
Blatant denial and suspicion
According to the Washington Post, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) seemed to have some trouble trying to explain to the press and on behalf of the Senate Intelligence Committee, why they would be able to lead an investigation on Russian interference during the 2016 Presidential campaign. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) who was standing next to him during the press briefing, stepped in to reiterate a bi-partisan effort to conduct the investigation.
Senator Burr has himself been a Trump supporter and yet when he has said that he would commit himself to the investigation.
But the Trump administration has already gone the distance to build their own support by leaning entirely on those who already support him, or removing opposition within the executive branch as he did during the mentioned purge. In a Blasting News article about reporters and journalists who have been breaking stories on the investigation and other conspiracies from the White House, they've summed up the fact that Trump has efficiently created a narrative for himself, which is also enfored by loyal members throughout the ranks which make no qualms about stopping a investigation, creating a distraction or having some influence where when questioned; the opposition is simply spun through an exhaustive infrastructure of the President's own changing narrative.
