Obama Officials Held Back Some Russia Intel from Trump’s Transition Team

While it shouldn’t come as a surprise in light of the sanctions they placed on Russia, those in Barack Obama’s administration were concerned about the Kremlin’s alleged connections to Donald Trump’s campaign and incoming administration staff. According to an article posted Tuesday night by the Washington Post, though, it was bad enough that some members of the Obama team made a point of not sharing all of their intelligence on Russia and some other nation’s security issues with members of the new administration.

Specifically, they were concerned about now former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s connections with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to the United States, who he discussed the sanctions with. While there was “no formal decision,” there were clearly some shared concerns among the Obama team. “We did decide to not share with them certain things about Russia,” one “senior” Obama official told WaPo. “We just thought, who knew? Would that information be safe?”

In addition, Susan E. Rice, Obama’s National Security Advisor, gave Flynn no advance notice that the sanctions were coming, instead waiting until the public announcement to notify him. According to the article, Flynn and his wife were vacationing in the Dominican Republic when Kislyak called on the day that the sanctions were announced, and if it ended there the call might not have become a big deal. But it was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision not to pursue retaliatory sanctions — a move that Trump praised on Twitter — which contextualized the call and made authorities take notice of it.