Former national security adviser Michael Flynn received substantial paychecks from Russian entities in the year before joining Donald Trump’s campaign as a surrogate, newly released documents reveal. The payments include previously reported disbursements from the Kremlin-backed RT network, as well as from two separate Russian companies, and are likely to renew questions about the Trump campaign’s friendliness toward Russia. Flynn attended a 10th anniversary gala for RT in December 2015, for which the government-funded network paid him $45,386, according to documents published Thursday by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md. The documents also show that in July 2015, Flynn received two separate payments of $11,250 from Volga-Dnieper, a cargo airline, and Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, a cybersecurity firm. Both companies are privately owned and based in Russia, though Flynn appears to have given talks to branches based in the U.S., according to Yahoo News.

Source: Huffington Post March 16, 2017 19:18 UTC