How Michael Flynn Got Security Clearance Despite Flags
Years back, when I was researching a story about how the CIA had overlooked Russian moles in its ranks, I applied for my own security file. I wanted to know what investigators had dug up when they delayed granting me a top-secret clearance for a slot in Army Intelligence during the Vietnam War. As it turned out, they had discovered an alarming piece of information: I had been fired from a summer job years earlier at Sugarman’s shoe store in Hyannis, Massachusetts.
According to my declassified file, the agents rushed down to Cape Cod to interview the proprietor. Mr. Sugarman gave the agents the shocking story: He’d fired me because I “was no good with women’s shoes.” That derogatory item, along with a one-time visit to my campus shrink the previous year for counseling after my girlfriend dumped me, held up my clearance for weeks.
Related: Flynn likely broke the law with paid Russia trip, Chaffetz says
If only the FBI had been so he had failed to disclose what had been for months: payments totaling more than $65,000 in 2015 from companies linked to Moscow, including its propaganda arm, Russia Today, or RT Flynn had also failed to register as a foreign agent after accepting a with a lobbyist linked to Turkish strongman but also to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “As a former military officer, you simply cannot take money from Russia, Turkey or anybody else,” said Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, chairman the committee, “and it appears as if he did take that money. It was inappropriate, and there are repercussions for a violation of law.”
