Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, while talking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN Tuesday, said that President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, potentially “faces a lot of jail time” over a subpoena issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential elections.
“I mean Michael Flynn can’t hide for very long ultimately he likely has legal liability for his failure to disclose his connections to both the Russian and Turkish government,” Murphy said, “and if he doesn’t tell his story then he likely faces a lot of jail time.”
“And this is the big problem for President Trump,” he warned, “he has got some people very close to him who face pretty serious legal jeopardy, and they may start talking very soon.”
California Democratic Representative Adam Schiff was also present on the program on Tuesday. According to him, Flynn had also refused the House Intelligence Committee’s request for the documents. He further added that they were consider contempt charges to force Flynn to give up the documents.
“Are you prepared to hold General Flynn in contempt of Congress,” Blitzer asked.
“I share the views you just heard expressed by Senator Burr,” Schiff responded, “and that is that it was our preference initially to get these documents and testimony voluntarily, it’s now gonna be necessary to subpoena it.”
“If the general refuses without a good legal basis than I think we do have to explore the use of contempt,” he concluded.
“When you say explore I assume you and your staff and your experts have been looking through what it would mean to actually file contempt charges against General Flynn?” Blitzer asked.
“Well we started out in the hope that the witness that we’ve invited would come and cooperate voluntarily,” Schiff responded. “I’m sure that a great many will, obviously some won’t. But we don’t go into this presuming with most of these witnesses that we’re going to have to fight to get their documents, but we will be vigorous and have to be about getting our information.”
“Our next step is to tailor our subpoenas with the best chance of success,” he explained. “But we’ll also do our own legal research to find out what further steps are necessary if we’re going to have to go the route of contempt.”
