The Justice Department on Friday released a transcript of a call from Donald Trump’s attorney John Dowd to Rob Kelner, the lawyer for Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, where he sought information about Flynn’s discussions with the special counsel.
However, the Justice Department refused to turn over transcripts of Flynn’s calls with Russian officials, including then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, as was expected after Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered prosecutors to file those publicly.
Dowd also wanted to remind Flynn about “the President and his feelings towards Flynn.”
The transcript was submitted to a federal court in Washington following a judge’s order to submit it.
The call, which occurred on November 22, 2017, was part of the investigation into potential obstruction by Robert Mueller covered in his lengthy report.
Regarding the Kislyak call, prosecutors appear to say they don’t believe they need to hand over other recording transcripts they may have involving Flynn. But their explanation in the filing Friday isn’t clear.
“The government further represents that it is not relying on any other recordings, of any person, for purposes of establishing the defendant’s guilty or determining his sentence, nor are there other recordings that are part of the sentencing record,” the Friday filing says, in the only sentence apparently addressing their response to Sullivan’s order for the Flynn transcripts of calls with Russians.
Separately, the Justice Department hasn’t released any additional parts of the Mueller report that were previously confidential. The judge had told prosecutors they needed to make public redacted sections of the report that pertained to Flynn by today. Prosecutors said Friday that all of the information about Flynn or that Flynn gave to Mueller that made it into the report is already public.
Read the voicemail here:
Hey, Rob, uhm, this is John again. Uh, maybe, I-I-I’m-I’m sympathetic; I understand your situation, but let me see if I can’t … state it in … starker terms. If you have … and it wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve gone on to make a deal with, and, uh, work with the government, uh … I understand that you can’t join the joint defense; so that’s one thing. If, on the other hand, we have, there’s information that. .. implicates the President, then we’ve got a national security issue, or maybe a national security issue, I don’t know … some issue, we got to-we got to deal with, not only for the President, but for the country. So … uh … you know, then-then, you know, we need some kind of heads up. Um, just for the sake of … protecting all our interests, if we can, without you having to give up any … confidential information. So, uhm, and if it’s the former, then, you know, remember what we’ve always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains, but-Well, in any event, uhm, let me know, and, uh, I appreciate your listening and taking the time. Thanks, Pal.