House subpoenas Michael Flynn, Rick Gates in Russian interference probe

Michael Flynn is back in the picture.

The House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed President Trump's short-lived national security adviser, along with former Trump campaign deputy chair Rick Gates, it announced Thursday morning. The committee is seeking documents related to its investigation of foreign interference in the 2016 election by a June 26 deadline, and also wants the two subjects to appear for testimony on July 10.

Both Flynn and Gates had pleaded guilty to charges accrued in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe. House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) noted this in his Thursday subpoena letter to Flynn, writing that Flynn had agreed to "eke out the last modicum of cooperation" in his guilty plea. But even though "both Michael Flynn and Rick Gates were critical witnesses for Special Counsel Mueller's investigation," Schiff writes in a Thursday statement, they "so far have refused to cooperate fully with Congress."

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The subpoenas arrived just hours after Flynn retained FBI conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell as a lawyer — a move Trump praised him for just minutes before the subpoenas dropped. That tweet — and comments from Trump lawyer John Dowd last week — sparked discussion of a presidential pardon for Flynn.