(Erin Scott/Reuters)
Two top Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee have asked the Justice Department to declassify notes from an FBI interview of Miles Taylor, who authored the anonymous New York Times op-ed about the resistance to President Trump within his own administration.
Taylor was interviewed as a possible witness in the Crossfire Hurricane probe and is identified in briefing notes intended for former FBI director James Comey dated May 1, 2017. It is not clear who wrote the notes, which span eleven pages and are heavily redacted, and were released by the Justice Department on October 30 of this year. Taylor’s role in the Flynn probe is also unclear.
Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), head of the committee, and colleague Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr on Monday requesting the declassification.
“We request all records relating to the FBI’s interview of Miles Taylor, including all 302s and notes, to better understand his role in the Flynn investigation,” Johnson and Grassley wrote.
The 2017 briefing notes refer to a “witness interview of Miles Taylor” in connection with Flynn Intel Group, the lobbying firm of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and the group’s work in Turkey. Taylor was a staffer on the House Committee on Homeland Security at the time, and met with Flynn’s firm on several occasions in October 2016. In 2017, Taylor moved to the Department of Homeland Security, where he wrote an anonymousop-ed for the Times touting himself as part of a “resistance” within the Trump administration.
Following his win in the 2016 election, President Trump appointed Flynn as national security adviser. Flynn was fired following allegations that he lied to FBI agents investigating suspicions of cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents in 2017.
However, after a protracted legal fight, the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn.
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