General Flynn (Credit: Dustin Franz/Getty Images)
In May 2017, the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office received a referral from FBI headquarters to open a media leak investigation into a January 13, 2017 Washington Post article by David Ignatius, which contained highly classified information concerning calls placed between Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Russian Ambassador:
According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials and other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions?
The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Baltimore Field Office would conduct a full investigation – named Echos Fate – into the leak beginning May 10, 2017, assisted by the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the DOJ National Security Division, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
It also investigated the leak of information, again to the Washington Post, in an article written by Greg Miller, Adam Entous, and Ellen Nakashima published on February 9, 2017 and entitled “Officials Say Flynn Discussed Sanctions.” That article was particularly destructive, as the leaks concerning the Flynn/Kislyak calls were alleged to be “contrary to public assertions by Trump officials”, putting Flynn on the ropes and the Trump Administration on the defensive.
Various other articles were part of Echos Fate, including:
Part of the problem with determining the identity of those who leaked the Flynn/Kislyak information was that, beginning in late December 2016, the outgoing Obama Administration made those calls a matter of routine discussion – starting with January 2017 meetings in the White House.
As documented in Peter Strzok’s notes from a January 4, 2017 meeting at the Obama White House, FBI Director James Comey brought those calls to the attention of President Obama (and VP Biden, Sally Yates, and others).
As explained by the FBI, their investigative pool was “comprised of over 167 individuals” – not including all those persons “exposed to the ECHOS FATE material through verbal briefings and discussions.” The FBI’s investigative pool was essentially unknown.
For over a year, we’ve had our own FOIA lawsuit filed against the FBI for the Flynn/Kislyak investigation – and recently received the FBI’s opening communication on ECHOS FATE, though it was much more redacted than what was just released. We’ve been informed by the Government that the Echos Fate investigative file is over 2,000 pages and has an hour of video. Production of these records will be slow – and we will be sure to post what we get.
Those 2,000 pages don’t include the thousands of documents reviewed by the FBI in its attempt to find those who leaked. But it does include over 30 interviews, described by the FBI as including those from the FBI, DOJ, and US Intelligence Community.
On our own, we were able to determine that the initial leak of the Flynn/Kislyak calls likely took place around January 5, 2017 – just one day after the White House meeting where the calls were discussed. And the leaks weren’t initially made to David Ignatius but to Adam Entous (then with the Washington Post). Entous, in a public appearance, discussed how the leaks occurred, though he didn’t give names:
“Then, my sources start whispering to me that there were all these mysterious communications between Michael Flynn, who was then the National Security Advisor designate for Trump and the Russian ambassador, Kislyak.”
Back in May 2020, we asked Entous about the Flynn leak. He responded the leak came directly from “sources [who] saw a transcript and described it to [him].”
We suspect there were a host of officials who leaked the Flynn calls – including Sally Yates or her underlings, like Mary McCord or Tashina Gauhar. After all, Entous was suspiciously familiar with Yates’s concerns about the calls:
In any event, by December 2020, the Baltimore Field Office, in concurrence with the US Attorney’s Office for DC, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the FBI’s Washington Field Office, recommended that Echos Fate be closed, stating all investigative steps and methods, and all leads, had been completed or discontinued. (Read more: Techno Fog, 8/13/2025) (Archive)