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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHomeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, June 6, 2017, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on the fiscal year 2018 budget. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo Credit: Susan Walsh\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday, Kelly defended Kushner at a Senate hearing amid reports that he attempted to establish “back-channel” communication between Russia and Trump’s presidential transition team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kelly said back-channel talks have been common in U.S. diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We have to make the assumption \u2014 and I will \u2014 that Jared Kushner is a great American,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pressed by Montana Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, on whether he believes lawmakers should “ensure that assumption is correct,” Kelly described the questions as part of Mueller’s scope of inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “I think there are numerous investigations that are looking into this,” Kelly said. “I think it’s part of the Bob Mueller investigation, and I think there’s a number of congressional committees looking into it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full scope of Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia remains unclear. But it has incorporated a separate criminal investigation \u2014 which predated the election \u2014 of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, The Associated Press reported last week .<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also Tuesday, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee wrote Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to clarify the scope and authority of Mueller’s role and asked Rosenstein to ensure the probe is free of political interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is of paramount importance that Mr. Mueller’s investigation proceed, unimpeded by any officials who may have a conflict of interest or other ethical bar, or by political interference of any kind,” wrote Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rosenstein acknowledged Friday there’s a chance his role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey could become part of the special counsel’s investigation. If that happens, he said, he will recuse himself from being Mueller’s point of contact on the probe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If there’s a need from me to recuse, I will,” Rosenstein told The AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He also said the scope of Mueller’s probe is broad and could encompass any number of actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Late Tuesday, after meeting in closed session, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said the committee intends to reach out to former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to ask him to testify in open and closed session. Schiff said the committee is interested in interactions the Obama administration had with secretaries of state and local election officials about the dangers the Russian hacking posed to election systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associated Press writer Sadie Gurman contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn turned over about 600 pages of documents Tuesday to the Senate intelligence committee as part of its investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election, according to a congressional aide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":88372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":65,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[16,65],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1217,987,1616],"class_list":["post-47969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"D5YSUZCEGJAXFBP3MDF4ZYB6JE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2017\/06\/07\/flynn-turns-over-documents-to-panel-probing-russia-trump\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n