Schiff documents show Joe Biden's connection to Flynn case

What did Joe Biden know and when did he know it?

That question arises from the newly released documents in the Michael Flynn case, longtime Washington analyst Byron York reported in a Washington Examiner column following the release of 57 witness transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee's Trump-Russia investigation.

The release came after the Justice Department dropped its case against the onetime Trump national security adviser as evidence mounted that he had been framed by the FBI under Barack Obama.

Biden was Obama's vice president, and York points out there's "a Joe Biden connection deep inside the documents released as part of the Justice Department's decision to drop charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn."

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He explained that Sally Yates, Obama's deputy attorney general, played a key role in the Flynn investigation. But she told special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutors she was unaware of the phone call at the center of the Flynn case between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak until she was told about it by Obama.

Yates was part of a group that met with Obama regarding the Intelligence Community's findings on the Russian collusion allegations.

The meeting included Obama's top national security officials. Among them were FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, National Intelligence Director James Clapper and National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

According to records, Obama eventually dismissed the group but asked Yates and Comey to stay. The president then explained he had obtained information about Flynn's conversation with Kislyak.

"What does that have to do with Biden? The interview notes made no mention of the vice president," York writes.

"But think back to one of the stranger moments in the Trump-Russia investigation: Rice, on January 20, 2017, at almost the exact minute the Obama administration left office, sent an email to herself documenting the January 5 meeting. This is how it began: 'On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.'"

York points out that the email always seemed "to be an oddly timed effort to cover for Obama," since it stressed that Obama instructed that all issues be handled "by the book."

"A lot of Republicans, as they tried to figure out what steps the intelligence and law enforcement agencies took against incoming President Trump, have always wondered just what Obama knew about it," York noted.

"But now, it just so happens that another person who was in the room -- the Oval Office -- is running for president. So it seems reasonable to ask what Joe Biden knew about the intelligence and law enforcement efforts against the Trump team."

Trump campaign spokesman Matt Wolking commented: "Joe Biden was in the room when one of the greatest abuses of power by an administration in American history was in progress. ... What did Joe Biden know and when did he know it?"