WASHINGTON: Michael Flynn, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for national security adviser, held five phone calls with Russia’s ambassador to Washington on the day the United States retaliated for Moscow’s interference in the US presidential election, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The calls occurred between the time the Russian embassy was told about US sanctions and the announcement by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he had decided against reprisals, said the sources. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing internal US government deliberations about the issue.

The calls raised fresh questions among some US officials about contacts between Trump’s advisers and Russian officials at a time when US intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions to boost Republican Trump’s election chances against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

On Dec 29, US President Barack Obama announced he had ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats suspected of being spies and imposed sanctions on two Russian intelligence agencies over their involvement in hacking US political groups. The administration told Russian Ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, an hour before the decision was made public, one of the sources said.

The phone calls between Flynn and Kislyak were first reported by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. A Trump official confirmed one phone conversation between the two men on Dec 29, and said their understanding was they did not discuss the sanctions.

The three sources stressed that they did not know who initiated the five calls between Flynn, a former three-star army general who headed the US Defence Intelligence Agency under Obama, and Kislyak. Nor did they know the contents of the conversations, and declined to say how they learned of them.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2017