Bam knew feds had ear on general

Documents released in connection with Thursday’s blockbuster decision to drop the case against Michael Flynn show that then-President Barack Obama knew the feds had intercepted Flynn’s late 2016 phone conversations with a Russian official — and brought up the matter following a Jan. 5, 2017, White House briefing about Russian meddling in the recent presidential election.

Obama asked then-FBI Director James Comey and thenDeputy Attorney General Sally Yates to “stay behind” and revealed that he had “learned of the information about Flynn,” an FBI report said.

Obama startled Yates in early 2017 when he asked her about Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to court documents. Yates knew nothing about the calls.

Although she ran day-to-day operations at the Justice Department, which includes the FBI, Yates had been cut out of the loop and learned of the December 2016 calls from Obama rather than FBI officials.

The revelation that the FBI repeatedly bypassed Justice Department leaders emerged Thursday in documents released when the department dropped its case against Flynn, who pleaded guilty in late 2017 to lying to the FBI about the calls.

Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency three years earlier, and reportedly advised the incoming Trump administration against hiring him.

Flynn’s calls weren’t considered criminal at the time, but documents unsealed last month showed that FBI officials secretly discussed whether their aim was to get Flynn fired, or to “get him to lie,” when they interviewed him on Jan. 24, 2017, according toFoxNews.