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Michael Flynn Failed to Disclose Income From Russia-Linked Entities

Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, in January. Mr. Flynn reported an income of $1.37 million to $1.47 million.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who was forced out of the job in February, failed to list payments from Russia-linked entities on the first of two financial disclosure forms released Saturday by the Trump administration.

The first form, which he signed in February, does not directly mention a paid speech he gave in Moscow, as well as other payments from companies linked to Russia. The second, an amended version, lists the names of the companies that made the payments under a section for any nongovernment compensation that exceeds $5,000 “in a year.” That list appears to include all of the work that Mr. Flynn, a retired three-star Army general, has done since leaving the military in 2014, without providing compensation figures for any of it.

No reason was given for the discrepancy between the two forms.

The Russia-linked payments were detailed in a letter released in March by congressional investigators, and included a $45,000 speaking fee from RT, formerly known as Russia Today, a Kremlin-backed news network, for a speech in 2015 in Moscow. During the same trip, Mr. Flynn attended the network’s lavish anniversary dinner and was photographed sitting at the elbow of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Mr. Flynn has faced fierce criticism for the Moscow speech and for his lobbying efforts for Turkey. But the work paid well, and the disclosure forms showed income of nearly $1.5 million, a sizable amount for a man who left the military less than three years ago.

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In February, Michael T. Flynn stepped down as national security adviser amid a scandal surrounding his contacts with Russia before President Trump took office.CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

What Mr. Flynn, who spent most of his adult life earning a military officer’s salary, does not appear to possess is the kind of income-earning investment portfolio enjoyed by most wealthy Americans, including the numerous millionaires and billionaires in the Trump administration. His form listed assets valued at $380,000 and $800,000, most of which is tied up in retirement funds.

Mr. Flynn reported an income of $1.37 million to $1.47 million. The bulk — $827,055 — came from the Flynn Intel Group, the consulting business he founded after being pushed out as the chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014. The rest included speaking fees and income earned for doing consulting work and sitting on corporate boards, such as that of Adobe Systems, which paid him $125,250.

The speaking fees, all of which were from 2016, ranged from about $10,000 to about $22,000. He gave talks to relatively run-of-the-mill groups like the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce in Nebraska, but also to the David Horowitz Freedom Center in California, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as an anti-Muslim hate group.

It is unlikely that Mr. Flynn, who is seeking immunity from congressional and federal investigations into Russia’s meddling in the election, will match the same income this year. He shuttered the Flynn Intel Group at the end of 2016, and then was forced out of the White House in February for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of phone calls he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States in December.

The payments for lobbying work that Mr. Flynn did for the Turkish government — and did not disclose until March — were handled through the Flynn Intel Group, and are not listed separately on the disclosure forms. Mr. Flynn did not work directly for the Turkish government; the firm that hired him, Inovo, is owned by a Turkish-American businessman with links to leaders in Ankara and asked him to work on an issue important to the government.

Follow Matthew Rosenberg on Twitter at @AllMattNYT

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Flynn Failed to Report Pay Tied to Russia. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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