US and British intelligence officers discussed Flynn’s “worrisome” behaviour well before his
appointment last year by Donald Trump, multiple sources have said.
They raised concerns about
Flynn’s ties to Russia and his perceived
obsession with Iran. They were also anxious about his capacity for “linear thought” and some actions that were regarded as highly unusual for a three-star general.
Flynn’s erratic conduct had troubled US intelligence officials for some time, multiple sources have told the Guardian.
One concern involved an encounter with a Russian-British graduate student, Svetlana Lokhova, whom Flynn met on a trip to Cambridge in February 2014.
At the time, Flynn was one of the top US spies and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which provides information to the Pentagon about the military strengths and intentions of other states and terrorist groups.
A historian and a leading expert on Soviet espionage, Lokhova has claimed to have unique access to previously classified Soviet-era material in Moscow. She says her forthcoming book makes groundbreaking revelations about Soviet military intelligence operations run by the GRU – Russia’s military spy agency.
Western historians say access to intelligence agency records in Moscow has been severely restricted under
Vladimir Putin. One Russian historian who has written extensively on Russian intelligence said the situation with the GRU was “a complete disaster”.
“At least with the FSB and SVR [domestic and foreign spy agencies] there are places you can apply to view the archives, but with the GRU there’s not even a place to apply,” the historian said.
“Maybe two or three military historians have been allowed in. Sometimes there are duplicates in other archives, but getting into the actual GRU archive is basically impossible.”
The Guardian understands Flynn and Lokhova remained in email contact, conducted through an unclassified channel. In one email exchange described by Andrew, Flynn signed himself as “General Misha”, Russian for Mike.
Lokhova also listed Flynn as one of four referees who would provide selective endorsements for her book, which is expected to detail how Russian spies penetrated the US atomic weapons programme.
Though there is no suggestion of impropriety, Flynn would have been expected to “self report” any conversation with an unknown person, especially with links to an “adversary” country, such as Russia.
Flynn did not disclose his conversation with Lokhova, the Wall Street Journal reported. Whatever concerns the US intelligence agencies had over Flynn, he retained his top-level security clearance.
