Mike Flynn’s immunity lawyer Robert Kelner is an anti-Putin expert on Russia

| 12:28 pm EDT March 31, 2017
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Last night’s immunity request from former Donald Trump National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is bringing with it a number of questions. Is Flynn – who appears to be guilty of perjury and unregistered foreign agent felonies in addition to whatever role he may have played in the Russian election rigging conspiracy – truly ready to flip on Trump in the manner required to get such a deal? And now here’s another question: why did Flynn’s immunity request come from an attorney who’s an expert in Russian studies, and appears to be anti-Putin?

Mike Flynn’s immunity request letter came from his attorney Robert Kelner. We took at Kelner just to figure out who he is, and here’s what we learned. According to his own LinkedIn page, he has a bachelors degree in Politics and Russian Studies (link). He even wrote his thesis paper on Leon Trotsky (we can’t locate the thesis itself, but it’s been cited as a source in this book). To be clear, this does not mean that Kelner is pro-Russia or pro-Kremlin, only that he’s a studied expert on Russia. Our research team has found no current or past connection of any kind between Robert Kelner and Vladimir Putin’s Russian government.

In fact, during the election, Kelner positioned himself as an anti-Trump Republican, and even accused Trump of colluding with Russia (link). Some of his recent tweets have also been generically anti-Putin. And yet Kelner’s client Mike Flynn is so deeply embedded with Russia that he was seen having dinner with Putin in Moscow during the 2016 election cycle, and his consulting firm was on the take from multiple Russian companies. So why is Flynn now using an anti-Putin expert on Russia as his attorney in his attempted immunity deal in the Trump-Russia scandal? We’ll keep digging. Contribute to Palmer Report