Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice's emailed letter to herself concerning her successor, Michael Flynn, was time-stamped after President Donald Trump's inauguration, which gave the current administration access to it, Sen. Marco Rubio said Wednesday.
"I think the other relevant thing to look at in that e-mail is it makes it abundantly clear this is actually no longer an intelligence community issue," the Florida Republican told Fox News "Fox and Friends." "This was an FBI issue, which is why I believe that the hearings in Judiciary, proper forum, had to look at how the FBI handled this entire process and sort of figure out if there was any wrongdoing in the way it was approached."
In her email, Rice wrote that ex-FBI Director James Comey was worried about sharing classified information with Trump's transition team because of Flynn's conversation with Russia Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. However, she said that Comey had no knowledge of Flynn sharing classified information with the envoy.
The email was written to remember the events of a Jan. 5, 2017 briefing about Russian interference into the 2016 election, with outgoing President Barack Obama saying he wanted everyone to proceed "by the book."
"There's a process by which the FBI comes into talk to somebody," said Rubio. "You consult with the White House counsel, you potentially show the individual you're asking questions of a transcript and by the way you're asking questions that are relevant to a potential crime, and in essence that is material to an ongoing and legitimate investigation."
However, the FBI did not coordinate with the White House before speaking with Flynn, said Rubio, and they "actually went in there sort of under false pretenses and what appears to be an effort to entrap him."
"This whole thing makes no sense, he added. "Michael Flynn was a longtime member of the intelligence community. He would have known that any time anyone talks to a foreign official, there are chances that those calls are being intercepted potentially by multiple agencies around the world."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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