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The House Intelligence Committee just issued its first subpoenas in the Trump-Russia investigation

The committee just issued seven subpoenas related to the Russia investigation.

Michael Flynn.

The House Intelligence Committee issued seven subpoenas Wednesday as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, including subpoenas to former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

"As part of our ongoing investigation into Russian active measures during the 2016 campaign, today we approved subpoenas for several individuals for testimony, personal documents and business records," said Reps. Mike Conaway and Adam Schiff, the top Republican and Democrat involved in the investigation.

"We hope and expect that anyone called to testify or provide documents will comply with that request, so that we may gain all the information within the scope of our investigation. We will continue to pursue this investigation wherever the facts may lead," they said.

Flynn was forced to resign when it was reported in February that he had spoken to the Russian ambassador about US sanctions and then misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts. Flynn reportedly plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in response to a separate subpoena issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cohen's subpoena comes after he declined a request to provide information and documents related to his contacts with Russian officials.

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The other three subpoenas relate to questions around why Obama administration officials "unmasked" and distributed the names of Trump associates in classified intelligence reports.

The Journal reported that those subpoenas were issued to the CIA, FBI, and NSA and are seeking information related to unmasking requests made by former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, former CIA director John Brennan, and former UN ambassador Samantha Power.

Unmasking requests are not uncommon, said Charles Price, a former FBI agent who worked at the bureau for nearly three decades. "They're really not that big a deal."

"The identities of US persons may be released under two circumstances: 1) the identity is needed to make sense of the intercept; 2) if a crime is involved in the conversation," Robert Deitz, a former senior counselor to the CIA director and former general counsel at the National Security Agency, told Business Insider in an earlier interview.

In April, it emerged that Rice tried to learn the identities of Trump officials whose names were incidentally collected during routine intelligence-gathering operations.

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After news of Rice's request broke, she denied accusations that she had leaked the names of unmasked Trump officials to media outlets.

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