Former national security adviser Michael Flynn is expected to testify that President Trump instructed him to contact Russian officials shortly after the election, ABC News reported Friday.
Flynn is saying that Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians,” ABC’s Brian Ross said Friday, just moments after Flynn entered a guilty plea for lying about his contact with Russians during the presidential transition period.
Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI on Friday after being charged with one felony count in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
{mosads}
According to ABC News, Flynn is also prepared to testify against Trump, members of Trump’s family and White House officials.
Ross initially reported that Trump directed Flynn during the campaign to reach out to Russian officials. Hours later, ABC News issued a clarification, saying he had reached out shortly after the election.
ABC said that the Flynn confidant cited in its initial report “later clarified that during the campaign, Trump assigned Flynn and a small circle of other senior advisers to find ways to repair relations with Russia and other hot spots. It was shortly after the election, that President-elect Trump directed Flynn to contact Russian officials on topics that included working jointly against ISIS.”
The former adviser has reportedly also “promised full cooperation to the Mueller team” within the last 24 hours.
Flynn is the first official to hold a formal office in the Trump administration to be implicated by the Mueller probe, which is examining potential ties between the campaign and Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Flynn’s misrepresentation of his conversations with former Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak — which took place in December 2016, a month before Trump took office — were the justification for his ouster from the White House after just 24 days.
– This post was updated at 7:59 p.m. to reflect ABC News’s clarification