But Republicans who maintain that Flynn was simply trying to avoid aggravating the situation with the Kremlin quickly pointed to the transcripts to say the calls were proper. Trump's Justice Department dismissed the case this month, saying the FBI didn't have a basis to question Flynn in the first place.
The documents were released Friday (US time) by Senate Republicans after being declassified by John Ratcliffe, a former Texas congressman and loyalist of President Donald Trump who was sworn into the job earlier this week.
Ratcliffe's predecessor as intelligence director, Richard Grenell, this month declassified a list of names of intelligence and Obama administration officials who in late 2016 and early 2017 requested to see the identity of an American citizen that was concealed in classified intelligence reports. That name was revealed to be Flynn.
There is nothing unusual about that process, known as unmasking, and it's been more prevalent at the beginning of the Trump administration than it was at the end of the Obama administration. But supporters of the president have suggested that the requests were made for political reasons.