Carlos Barria/Reuters
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn paid an ex-FBI agent at the center of one of Hillary Clinton’s email scandals as part of his lobbying work, newly filed financial disclosures show. The former agent, Brian McCauley, signed a retainer agreement worth $28,000 with Flynn's consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, last fall. McCauley is perhaps best known for a controversy that broke in October 2016 -- just two weeks after he signed the retainer agreement -- that some say cost Clinton the election. At that time, he said a State Department official had asked him to ensure that one of Clinton’s emails not be deemed “classified” – a move that would spare her from liability for the email being on her private server. McCauley’s statements about the incident at the time were used as ammunition by Republicans to argue the State Department was protecting Clinton, though he later said he had initiated the “quid pro quo” agreement with the State Department official, not the State Department.
Flynn Intel also paid $20,000 to a behavior analysis firm operated by two former FBI agents, as well as another $7,500 to Rear Admiral Paul Becker, according to foreign agent disclosure reports cited by The Daily Caller. It was not clear what services he purchased, but the payments were all made as part of Flynn Intel’s lobbying work for Inovo BV, owned and operated by a businessman with ties to the Turkish government. Flynn filed the disclosure reports earlier this week after registering as a foreign agent with the Justice Department. He was fired from the White House last month amid scandal over his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S.