Some light has supposedly been shed on K.T. McFarland's decision to withdraw her name from consideration for the post of U.S. Ambassador to Singapore.
McFarland, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, was offered the job not once but twice, with the second offer reported by The Hill in January 2018.
However, in February 2018, MacFarland announced her decision to back out.
Following McFarland's withdrawal, Trump nominated the president of an interior design firm, Barbera Hale Thornhill, for Ambassador to Singapore in September 2019.
Controversy over McFarland and Flynn
At the time, there was speculation that McFarland may have concealed information about former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's relationship with then-Russian Ambassador to the U.S, Sergei Kislyak.
McFarland testified during her July 2017 Senate hearing that she was "not aware of any of the issues or events" about Flynn's contact with Kislyak.
But in December 2017, the New York Times reported that they had obtained an email exchange that allegedly showed McFarland had knowledge of a call between Flynn and Kislyak.
This email exchange supposedly took place in December 2016, long before McFarland's Senate hearing in July 2017.
Flynn pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017 of lying to the FBI during the course of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump White House.
Freedom of Information Act helped Buzzfeed obtain documents
On Jan. 2, Buzzfeed published a third report after filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. government to obtain certain documents from the Special Counsel.
This report revealed the details of an alleged conversation between McFarland and the Special Counsel's Office in December 2017.
McFarland reportedly told the Special Counsel that she was asked to resign from her post of Deputy National Security Advisor in February 2017.
She would then be offered the job of Ambassador to Singapore.
However, she allegedly had to do something for Trump in return.
Buzzfeed wrote:
"There was something the president wanted her to do, though: write an email saying that "the President never directed Flynn to call the Russians about sanctions.""
McFarland was allegedly told that this was a bad idea by a lawyer from the National Security Council, as it looked like a "quid pro quo" situation.
Instead, she supposedly wrote a "Memorandum for the Record" because she was "concerned" about Trump's request.
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Top image from Getty Images.