That’s what the conversation with the Russian ambassador likely was as well... an after the fact excuse for snooping on Flynn ...which probably goes back at least as far as his book ‘Field of Fight’ cowritten with Ledeen.
Why?
“The Field of Fight details the cooperation between Iran, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the PLO, and Russia. To give but two of many examples, Iran funds Hezbollah, which trains al-Qaeda terrorists. The British found an Iranian terrorist manual in Bosnia that had been used for training militants in Sudan. It detailed the use of sophisticated surveillance devices provided to terrorists by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Flynn and Ledeen detail the cooperation between Iran, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the PLO, and Russia.”
-—https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/winning-terror-war-michael-flynn-michael-ledeens-new-book-field-fight-must-read/
If you look at the arguments posed by Schiff’s secondhand whistle leakers, they center around snowflake bureaucrats sniffing about how hurt their feelings are that they had been cut from the loop and how terrible that the nation was thus deprived of their infinite wisdom. How dare Trump refuse to drink exclusively from their nipple...
I’ll point out that was the very same argument posed by Ambassador Joe Wilson against Cheney, etc., in the Niger affair. The ‘offense’ was to bypass the bureaucrats.
https://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/make-no-mistake-the-mueller-investigation-was-all-about-flynn/
The same argument was used by Powell assistant Lawrence Wilkerson in his leaks about Powell’s 2003 speech.