WASHINGTON: A top military counsel to President Donald Trump is under scrutiny by US counterintelligence agents who have probed the new national security adviser’s communications with Russian officials, the Wall Street Journal said Sunday. Inquiry findings and whether it was still underway remained unclear, the WSJ said. Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer has said Flynn had spoken with the envoy on Christmas Day, sending him a text to wish him a merry Christmas and happy New Year. The national security adviser is not formally part of the cabinet but is usually one of the president’s most influential counsels. Flynn, a veteran of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has courted controversy with extreme statements that critics say border on Islamophobia, but has taken a more flexible line on Russia and China.

Source: Manila Times January 23, 2017 13:05 UTC