Flynn’s stint as NSA chief probed

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team of investigators is seeking information from the White House related to Michael Flynn’s stint as national security adviser and about the response to a meeting with a Russian lawyer that was attended by President Donald Trump’s oldest son, The Associated Press has learned.

Mueller’s office has requested a large batch of documents from the White House and is expected to interview at least a half-dozen current and former aides in the coming weeks. Lawyers for the White House are in the process of trying to cooperate with the document requests.

Though the full scope of the investigation is not clear, the information requests make evident at least some of the areas that Mueller and his team of prosecutors intend to look into and also reveal a strong interest in certain of Trump’s actions as president.

A person familiar with the investigation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said investigators want information on, among other topics, a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that Donald Trump Jr. attended with a Russian lawyer as well as on the administration’s response to it.

A statement provided to journalists in July, which the White House has said Trump had a hand in drafting, said the meeting was primarily to discuss a disbanded program that used to allow American adoptions of Russian children, but emails released days later by Trump Jr. show that he arranged the encounter with the expectation of receiving damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

Investigators also are interested in White House actions involving Flynn, such as what officials knew about an FBI investigation into him and how they responded to word that his Russian contacts had been scrutinized. Flynn was forced out as national security adviser in February after White House officials concluded he had misled them about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Former FBI Director James Comey has said that Flynn was facing an FBI criminal investigation “of his statements in connection with the Russian contacts and the contacts themselves. And so that was my assessment at the time.”