Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said Friday that Robert Mueller's Russia investigators will look for "something of value" to determine criminality involving former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
"They can they determine that in any exchange between Gen. Flynn and any of his foreign contacts he was seeking something of value for the campaign," Rogers, the former Michigan Republican congressman, told Wolf Blitzer on CNN.
"That tips the scale for a criminal matter, if they can find that."
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Mueller's investigators were probing any role Flynn might have had in trying to obtain Hillary Clinton's emails from Russian hackers.
The Journal's report was based on "people familiar with the matter."
Another scenario Rogers proposed was that Mueller's probe would also "look for promises of other things, meaning, 'If you give me this, I'll do this for you later.'
"If they can make those determinations, now, it rises to the level of criminally," he told Blitzer. "If not, there is not a lot there there.
"Even this talk of collusion is not necessarily a crime," he explained. "You can talk to a foreign government. You can get their input.
"You can do all of those things without being illegal.
"What they're going to center on is the finances of this — and promises that may have been made — and anything of value not directly money-related that may have been asked for by the Russians or by Russian intelligence."