Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has declassified a list of Obama administration officials involved in the illegal "unmasking" of Gen. Michael Flynn's conversations with the former Russian ambassador.
Attorney General William Barr is now in possession of the list and has the authority to make the document public,
ABC News reported.
Grenell visited the Justice Department last week, delivering the list of Obama administration officials before AG Barr announced the dropping of the DOJ case against Flynn.
Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to FBI investigators about his contacts with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, but he withdrew his plea when his legal team found evidence of potential prosecutorial and investigative abuses.
Flynn's calls with the former Russian ambassador during the presidential transition were picked up in surveillance and later leaked.
Skeptics said in 2017 that the investigation and prosecution of Flynn was unjustified under the Logan Act. That act precludes American citizens from acting on behalf of the U.S. government overseas, but Flynn's contacts with the Russian diplomat came in the course of just actions amid the presidential transitions, skeptics argued.
Barr now agrees.
"They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage, based on a perfectly legitimate and appropriate call he made as a member of the transition," Barr told CBS News last week.
The Logan Act, which was written into law late in the 1700s, has not been used in criminal prosecutions, and legal expert Alan Dershowitz has told Newsmax TV it is ostensibly "off the books" as "outdated law."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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