BLACKMAIL FEARED OVER EX-NATIONAL SECURITY BOSS
Ex-U.S. security adviser ‘could be blackmailed’
WASHINGTON • Former acting attorney general Sally Yates, speaking publicly for the first time about concerns she brought to the Trump White House on Russia, told Congress on Monday she warned that National Security Adviser Michael Flynn “essentially could be blackmailed” because he apparently had lied to his bosses about his contacts with the Russian ambassador.
The statements from Yates, an Obama administration holdover, offered by far the most detailed account of the chain of events that led to Flynn’s ouster from government in the first weeks of the Trump administration.
Yates, appearing before a Senate panel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, described discussions with Trump White House Counsel Don McGahn in January in which she warned that Flynn had misled the administration about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador.
White House officials had insisted that Flynn had not discussed U.S.-imposed sanctions with Kislyak during the presidential transition period, but asked Flynn to resign after news reports indicated he had misled them about the nature of the calls.
“We felt like it was critical that we get this information to the White House, in part because the vice-president was making false statements to the public and because we believed that Gen. Flynn was possibly compromised,” Yates said. “We knew that was not a good situation, which is why we wanted to let the White House know about it.”
The Jan. 26 conversation took place two days after the FBI interviewed Flynn about those contacts. McGahn asked Yates how Flynn did in the interview, but Yates said she could not answer.
She was fired four days later by the Trump administration.
The hearing came hours after former Obama administration officials revealed Obama had warned Trump against hiring Flynn during an Oval Office meeting after the 2016 election.
The highly anticipated hearing — it was Yates’ first appearance on Capitol Hill since her firing — before a Senate panel investigating Russian interference in the presidential election was expected to fill in basic details in the chain of events that led to Flynn’s ouster. Word that Obama directly warned Trump suggests that concern over Flynn’s possible appointment spread to the highest level of government.
The Obama-Trump discussion was first reported Monday by NBC-TV.
Flynn’s forced February resignation followed media reports that he had discussed U.S.-imposed sanctions on Russia with Kislyak, which was contrary to the public representations of the Trump White House.