The Trump administration's new national intelligence director waded into political waters in his first week on the job, declassifying documents that allies of the president say bolster their contention former national security adviser Michael Flynn was wrongly pursued.
The extraordinary decision to release transcripts of Flynn's calls with a foreign country's ambassador, a closely guarded secret for more than three years, is part of an ongoing Trump administration effort to disclose information from the Russia investigation in hopes of painting Obama-era officials in a bad light and suggesting they acted improperly.
The transcripts of calls with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador at the time, provide opportunities for partisans on both sides to advance their perspectives of the investigation.
They appear to show, as prosecutors have alleged, that Flynn urged Kislyak to refrain from escalating tensions with the US in response to newly imposed sanctions against Russia. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about that call.
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