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?????????????????????????????????????????????????Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Sally Yates says she warned White House that Flynn was a blackmail risk
BY CNN WIRE- MAY 8, 2017
(CNN) — Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates said Monday that she alerted the White House earlier this year that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn could be “essentially blackmailed by the Russians.”
(CNN) — Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates said Monday that she alerted the White House earlier this year that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn could be “essentially blackmailed by the Russians.”
“We believed that Gen. Flynn was compromised with respect to the
Russians,” Yates told a Senate judiciary subcommittee, in a high-profile
hearing on Russian meddling into the US election.
Yates told the panel that she had a meeting with White House Counsel
Donald McGahn on January 26 to tell him that she had information that
statements by Vice President Mike Pence, based on his conversations with
Flynn, were false. She was joined in the meeting by a senior career
official in the Justice Department.
“We
weren’t the only ones that knew all of this, that the Russians also
knew about what General Flynn had done and the Russians also knew that
General Flynn had misled the vice president and others,” Yates said,
relating the contents of her conversation with McGahn.
Yates was speaking at a hearing led by Sen. Lindsey Graham, who opened
the hearing with an implicit rebuke of the President and his alternative
explanations for the interference in the election.
The South Carolina Republican said the hacking was not the work of “some
400-pound guy sitting on a bed or any other country,” a reference to a
comment Trump has previously made on the matter.
In her opening statement, Yates said that she planned to be as “fulsome
and comprehensive as possible” within ethical and legal boundaries.
Yates also warned in her opening testimony that there were some issues
she could not address publicly because they involved classified
information. Similarly, she said that as a former official she was not
authorized to discuss Department of Justice or other executive branch
deliberations. It was not immediately clear how those constraints would
affect her testimony on the Flynn question. Neither Flynn nor Trump were
directly referenced in her opening statement.
“The efforts by a foreign adversary to interfere and undermine our
democratic processes — and those of our allies — pose a serious threat
to all Americans,” Yates said.
Graham asked Yates whether she had any information about whether there
was collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
“My answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information,” Yates said.
At one point in the hearing Graham asked both Clapper and Yates how
information about Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador,
that eventually led to his sacking, made it into the newspapers. Trump
asked a similar question earlier on Twitter. Both former official said
they did not know how that happened.
Lawmakers have been wrangling behind the scenes at the Capitol to bring
in Yates ever since it was reported that she warned Trump’s White House
counsel, Don McGahn, that Flynn had talked about US sanctions against
Russia with the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak. Officials
later confirmed to CNN that Trump transition officials warned Flynn
against calling Kislyak, saying that Kislyak was likely being monitored
by US intelligence.
Trump went on the offensive on Twitter Monday morning, hours before the
hearing began, blaming the Obama administration for Flynn’s security
clearance and asking the committee to question Yates over leaking
classified information to the media.
“General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama
Administration – but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that,”
Trump wrote, adding later, “Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows
how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she
explained it to W.H. Council.”
A White House official told CNN that the administration plans to rebut
Yates by employing two strategies: Calling into question her objectivity
by arguing she is a partisan Democrat and questioning the timeline of
events she is expected to present.
The Senate judiciary committee’s crime and terrorism subcommittee also
heard from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who
spoke in advance of Yates. He testified that he did not know about the
FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the election and whether
there were any links to the Trump campaign until its existence was
announced in a congressional hearing by FBI Director James Comey in
March.
“During my tenure as DNI, it was my practice to defer to the FBI
director — both (former FBI) Director (Robert) Mueller and Director
Comey — on whether, when, and to what extent they would inform me about
such investigations,” Clapper said.
Clapper issued a clarion call for vigilance over Russian election interference before it further eroded US democracy.
“They must be congratulating themselves for having exceeded their
wildest expectations,” he said. “They are now emboldened to continue
such activities in the future, both here and around the world, and to do
so even more intensely.”
Graham, the leader of Monday’s hearing, also invited former President
Barack Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, to testify with
Yates and Clapper, but she rejected the invitation through her lawyer,
noting the last-minute timing of the invitation. A source familiar with
Rice’s discussions told CNN that when Graham invited her, Rice believed
it was a bipartisan overture and was prepared to accept.
However, ranking Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse indicated to her that the
invitation was made without his agreement, as he believed her presence
was not relevant to the topic of the hearing, according to the source.
Of the four former Trump campaign aides at the center of the Capitol
Hill’s Russia probes — including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort,
former foreign policy adviser Carter Page and former campaign adviser
Roger Stone — Flynn has generated the most heat following a steady
stream of revelations.
Investigators on the House oversight committee raised the possibility
last month that Flynn may have broken the law by not disclosing payments
from RT-TV, widely considered by US officials to be a propaganda arm of
the Russian government, on his 2016 national security clearance form.
Flynn’s lawyer at the time argued that Flynn had been open about his
speech to RT-TV, including briefing the Defense Intelligence Agency on
his trip.
Monday’s hearing, which is expected to be dominated by Yates’ warning to
the White House on Flynn, is certain to put him back on center stage in
the ongoing Russia investigations.
Yates’ appearance itself has been fraught with drama ever since House
intelligence chairman Devin Nunes’ delayed her House hearing at the last
minute, as part of a chaotic three-week stretch that saw the House
Russia investigation almost fall apart and Nunes become the subject of a
House ethics probe.
The Washington Post reported at the time that the White House had
blocked Yates by asserting executive privilege, which allows the
President to stop a former aide from testifying. White House press
secretary Sean Spicer vehemently denied the reports at the time and said
that the White House actively supports Yates’ testifying in public.
A White House official said last week that the administration still
wants Yates to testify in public and reaffirmed Spicer’s comments.
Graham and Whitehouse also said they heard of no effort to stop her from
coming before them.
Still, Democrats on the House Russia investigation are anxiously
watching Monday’s hearing: First, to see if Yates shows up and, second,
to see how much she reveals publicly.
This story has been updated and will be updated as news develops.