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 ::3.

On January 12, 2017, a Washington Post columnist reported that Flynn and Kislyak communicated on the day the Obama Administration announced the Russia sanctions. The column questioned whether Flynn had said something to "undercut the U.S. sanctions" and whether Flynn's communications had violated the letter or spirit of the Logan Act.

President-Elect Trump called Pricbus after the story was published and expressed anger about it. Priebus recalled that the President-Elect asked, "What the hell is this all about?" Priebus called Flynn and told him that the President-Elect was angry about the reporting on Flynn's conversations with Kislyak. Flynn recalled that he felt a lot of pressure because Priebus had spoken to the "boss" and said Flynn needed to "kill the story." Flynn directed McFarland to call the Washington Post columnist and inform him that no discussion of sanctions had occurred. McFarland recalled that Flynn said words to the effect of, "I want to kill the story." McFarland made the call as Flynn had requested although she knew she was providing false information, and the Washington Post updated the column to reflect that a "Trump official" had denied that Flynn and Kislyak discussed sanctions.

When Priebus and other incoming Administration officials questioned Flynn internally about the Washington Post column, Flynn maintained that he had not discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Flynn repeated that claim to Vice President-Elect Michael Pence and to incoming press secretary Sean Spicer. In subsequent media interviews in mid-January, Pence, Priebus, and