Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy

by Seth Abramson

According to Newsweek and McClatchy, Flynn’s summer 2015 trip was part of a “joint venture … involv[ing] U.S. companies, a Russian state-sponsored company, and Saudi financing, and was geared towards providing nuclear power to the Arab world.”144 One indication that Flynn sees the complications inherent in attempting to broker such a transnational deal is that he fails to disclose this trip to Saudi Arabia when he seeks a new federal security clearance in late 2016.145 Moreover, he fails to properly disclose a second, October 2015 trip to Saudi Arabia that is part of the same joint venture. In hiding the details of this second trip from federal authorities, he makes up the name of the hotel he allegedly stayed at, and obscures his business interests in Saudi Arabia under the false claim that he was in the kingdom “for six days to speak at a conference.”146 He also fails to disclose the identity of the “friend” who traveled with him to Saudi Arabia and the company that paid for his trip.147 It is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison per offense to “knowingly falsify or conceal a material fact” on a federal security clearance application.