Mideast nuclear plan backers bragged of support of top Trump aide Flynn

DECEMBER 2, 2017 /  02H:55 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Suzanne Gould and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Washington DC

WASHINGTON - Backers of a U.S.-Russian plan to build nuclear reactors across the Middle East bragged after the U.S. election they had backing from Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn for a project that required lifting sanctions on Russia, documents reviewed by Reuters show.

FILE PHOTO: Then White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn arrives prior to a joint news conference between Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC, U.S. on February 13, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

The documents, which have not previously been made public, reveal new aspects of the plan, including the proposed involvement of a Russian company currently under U.S. sanctions to manufacture nuclear equipment. That company, major engineering and construction firm OMZ OAO, declined to comment.

The documents do not show whether Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, took concrete steps to push the proposal with Trump and his aides. But they do show that Washington-based nuclear power consultancy ACU Strategic Partners believed that both Flynn, who had worked as an adviser to the firm as late as mid-2016, and Trump were firmly in its corner.

“Donald Trump’s election as president is a game changer because Trump’s highest foreign policy priority is to stabilize U.S. relations with Russia which are now at a historical low-point,” ACU’s managing director, Alex Copson, wrote in a Nov. 16, 2016 email to potential business partners, eight days after the election.

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White House officials did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. ACU declined comment and also declined to make Copson available for an interview. Previously they told a congressional committee that they had not had any dealings with Flynn since May 2016, before Trump became the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.

Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, did not respond to a request for comment.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI about a discussion with the former Russian ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, in late December 2016 regarding sanctions.

The documents also show that ACU proposed ending Ukraine’s opposition to lifting sanctions on Russia by giving a Ukrainian company a $45 billion contract to provide turbine generators for reactors to be built in Saudi Arabia and other Mideast nations.

The contract to state-owned Turboatom, and loans to Ukraine from Gulf Arab states, would “require Ukraine to support lifting US and EU sanctions on Russia,” Copson wrote in the Nov. 16 email.

A Turboatom spokeswoman said she did not have an immediate comment on the matter.

The email was titled “TRUMP/PUTIN ME Marshall plan CONCEPT.” ME stands for Middle East. The title, evoking the post-World War Two plan to rebuild Western European economies, reflected the hopes of the plan’s backers that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could cooperate on a project that would boost Middle East economies.

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The email can be seen here: tmsnrt.rs/2ALdoCY

The ACU documents reviewed by us at Reuters include emails, business presentations and financial estimates and date from late autumn 2016.

‘READY TO GO’

As part of their investigation into the Trump election campaign’s ties to Russia, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Democrats on the House of Representatives’ Oversight Committee are probing whether Flynn promoted the Middle East nuclear power project as national security adviser in Trump’s White House.

Flynn resigned after just 24 days as national security adviser after it became known he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence by telling him he had not discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with Kislyak in late December.

In response to questions about the emails and documents, ACU referred us at Reuters to letters written in June and September by ACU scientist Thomas Cochran to the House Oversight Committee.

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn arrives for a plea hearing at U.S. District Court, where he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States, in Washington, U.S., December 1, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

In those letters, Cochran had laid out the project’s strategy, describing a “ready-to-go” consortium that included French, Russian, Israeli and Ukrainian interests, without naming specific companies.

The nuclear reactor plan aimed to provide Washington‘s Middle East allies with nuclear power in a way that didn’t risk nuclear weapons proliferation and also helped counter Iranian influence, improve dismal U.S.-Russian relations, and revive the moribund U.S. nuclear industry, according to the documents seen by us at Reuters.

The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post reported this week that Flynn pushed a version of the nuclear project within the White House by instructing his staff to rework a memo written by a former business associate into policy for Trump to sign.

Two U.S. officials familiar with the issue told us at Reuters that the policy document Flynn prepared for Trump’s approval proposed working with Russia on a nuclear reactor project but did not specifically mention ACU. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they did not know if Trump had read the memo or acted upon it.

‘THIS IS A BIG WIN’

On Nov. 18, 2016, 10 days after Trump won the presidential election, ACU’s Copson received an email from nuclear non-proliferation expert Reuben Sorensen saying that he had updated Flynn on the nuclear project’s status. Sorensen’s role in the project was not clear from the emails.

“Flynn is getting closer to (being named) National Security Advisor. Expect an announcement soon. This is a big win for the ACU project,” Sorensen wrote.

“Spoke with him via backchannels earlier this week. He has always believed in the vision of the ACU effort ... We need to let him get settled into the new position, but update him shortly thereafter,” Sorensen added.

The email can be seen here: tmsnrt.rs/2zTqxcZ

Reuters could not independently confirm a briefing took place. Sorensen did not reply to an email seeking comment.

On Nov. 30, 2016, Copson briefed U.S. Representative Ed Royce, Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on the nuclear project, an email shows.

Copson was joined by Jim Hamel, a senior official from Curtiss-Wright Corp., which has a nuclear division based in Royce’s California district and was eager for a role in the multi-billion dollar project.

In a follow-up email on Dec. 5 to a Royce aide, Hamel wrote, “We hope that the Chairman will follow-up on Alex’s suggestion to reach out to General Flynn” to discuss the project.

Royce’s spokesman, Cory Fritz, confirmed the briefing to Reuters. “No action was ever taken by the chairman or the committee,” he said in an email.

Hamel and Curtiss-Wright declined to comment.

Flynn was an adviser to ACU from April 2015 to June 2016, according to amended financial disclosure forms he filed in August 2017 to the Office of Government Ethics.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee say that when Flynn applied last year to renew his government security clearance, he failed to disclose a June 2015 trip he made to Egypt and Israel to promote the reactor project. Flynn has not commented on the trips.

Sources say Flynn could prove to be key asset in Mueller's U.S. campaign probe--analysis

NOVEMBER 25, 2017  05H:12  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Suzanne Gould and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters News Analysts, Washington DC/New York

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - Lawyers for former national security adviser Michael Flynn have halted communications with U.S. President Donald Trump’s legal team, a potentially critical step in the probe into contacts between Trump’s election campaign and Russia, sources familiar with the investigation said on Friday.

FILE PHOTO: White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn speaks at the White House in Washington, U.S. on February 1, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, called John Dowd, Trump’s private lawyer, on Wednesday to say the matter had reached a point where the two could no longer could discuss it, two people familiar with the call told us at Reuters on Friday.

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The New York Times first reported that the two sets of lawyers had stopped communicating.

Flynn, a retired Army general, is a central figure in a federal investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into whether Trump aides colluded with alleged Russian efforts to boost his 2016 presidential campaign.

It was not clear whether Kelner made the call because he had negotiated a plea agreement with Mueller for Flynn to cooperate in the probe, or because Flynn had decided to engage with Mueller, said two other sources.

“No one should draw the conclusion that this means anything about General Flynn cooperating against the president,” Jay Sekulow, another attorney for Trump, said on Thursday.

Dowd on Friday declined to comment on the matter, as did Peter Carr, Mueller’s spokesman. Kelner also declined to comment. White House officials also have declined to comment.

The cooperation of Flynn, who was a top campaign adviser before becoming Trump’s national security adviser in the White House, would be a major asset in Mueller’s investigation.

In March, as he unsuccessfully sought immunity for his client to testify to House and Senate investigations into the issue, Kelner said, “Mr. Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he certainly wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.”

Two sources familiar with Mueller’s investigation said Flynn may be able to provide insight into three major areas of inquiry.

These are: any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 campaign; money laundering and other possible financial crimes by Trump aides; and whether Trump sought to obstruct justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey in May, as Comey was probing the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia.

Russia has denied interfering in the election. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia by his campaign and has called the inquiry a witch hunt.

QUESTIONS FOR FLYNN

Two congressional officials involved in separate probes into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia said one key area of investigation is whether Flynn or other advisers to Trump ever suggested U.S. economic sanctions on Russia could be lifted in exchange for favorable business deals.

Possible deals include a proposed commercial nuclear power project involving Russian firms that Flynn in recent years worked to promote to potential clients in the Middle East, sources familiar with the project told us at Reuters.

“At this point, there is no evidence of an effort to negotiate that kind of deal, but Flynn is near the top of the list of people who probably would know if there was any such effort,” said one of the congressional officials, also speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Trump fired Flynn on Feb. 13, after disclosures that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with then Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak in December, the month before Trump took office, and later misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

Flynn has acknowledged contacts with Kislyak dating back to 2013, but beyond saying they covered a variety of subjects has said nothing about the content of their conversations during Trump’s campaign and after his election.

Flynn has been under scrutiny by the special counsel in a number of areas, sources familiar with the investigation have said.

Mueller has been investigating whether Flynn knowingly made false statements to the government about his foreign travels, income, and contacts on his security clearance form.

Flynn also has come under scrutiny for work on behalf of Russian clients, and over whether his work for a businessman with ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was lawful.

Mueller has been investigating Flynn’s son, Michael Flynn, Jr.‘s, involvement in some of his father’s business dealings in Russia, Turkey, and elsewhere, the sources said, and that could provide a potent additional incentive for Flynn to cooperate.

Barry Coburn, a lawyer for Flynn’s son, declined to comment.