Former CIA Director James Woolsey talked with the FBI as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe about a meeting last year with former national security adviser Michael Flynn, his spokesman said Friday.
"Ambassador Woolsey and his wife have been in communication with the FBI regarding the Sept. 19, 2016, meeting Ambassador Woolsey was invited to attend by one of Gen. Flynn's business partners," Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks, said in a statement via Twitter.
"Ambassador Woolsey and his wife have responded to every request, whether from the FBI, or, more recently, the Office of the Special Counsel," he said.
"It is unfortunate, yet predictable," Franks added, "that in an effort to defend themselves, certain individuals have attempted to impugn the Woolseys' integrity in the media."
NBC News reported Friday that Franks said Woolsey met with the FBI before and after Mueller was appointed to oversee the Justice Department's Moscow investigation.
Flynn, whom President Donald Trump fired in February amid concerns about his Russia disclosures to Vice President Mike Pence, has been a focus of Mueller's investigation.
In September 2016, Woolsey arrived to a meeting in which he said he heard a discussion about returning a U.S.-based Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, to Turkey.
Woolsey said he informed then-Vice President Joe Biden about the matter through a mutual friend, according to NBC.
Flynn was paid more than $500,000 for work that was to benefit the Turkish government.
Turkish officials had accused Gulen of orchestrating a failed coup attempt in 2016 — demanding that he be returned by the U.S. to stand trial on charges.
Woolsey, who had served under former President Bill Clinton, had once pitched a $10 million plan to two Turkish executives that would help discredit Gulen.
Woolsey was as an unpaid adviser to the Trump campaign at the time he approached the executives. He he quit the president-elect's transition team in January.
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