McFarland nomination stalls amid questions over contacts with Flynn

President Trump’s nominee to be the ambassador to Singapore has seen her Senate confirmation process derailed over unanswered questions about her contacts with Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last month.

K.T. McFarland, previously Flynn’s deputy on the National Security Council (NSC), was nominated by Trump to the ambassador position in June. CNN reported Wednesday that lawmakers are likely to send her nomination back to the White House at the end of the month, as the chances of her confirmation become increasingly bleak.

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McFarland testified that she “was not aware” of Flynn’s contacts with Russians before Congress earlier this year, but that testimony was thrown into question by Flynn’s guilty plea last month that stated he spoke about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. with McFarland during the transition period.

The former NSC official also came under scrutiny this month after it was revealed she wrote in an email during the transition that Russia “has just thrown the U.S.A. election to [Trump]”.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who oversees McFarland’s nomination, said the new questions about McFarland’s testimony made her nomination more “difficult.”

“Nominees that have other productive lives they can lead probably have to assess themselves whether it makes a lot of sense to continue on because it does put your life on hold,” Corker said. “Before any of these other things came out, there were significant Democratic objections to this nominee — the nominee is aware of that. This obviously makes it more difficult.”

Corker’s comments echo those he made earlier this month, when he said McFarland’s nomination was “frozen” until she answered questions about the reported discrepancies in her testimony.

“Her nomination is frozen for a while until that gets worked out,” Corker told CNN earlier this month. “She has to know that herself, and we’ll deal with it at the appropriate time.”