Yates: I warned about Flynn
Ex-acting AG says she thought national security adviser could be blackmailed by Russians
WASHINGTON — Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates told Congress on Monday she bluntly warned the Trump White House in January that new National Security Adviser Michael Flynn “essentially could be blackmailed” by the Russians because he apparently had lied to his bosses about his contacts with Moscow’s ambassador in Washington.
And though, Ms. Yates testified Monday, she expected White House officials to “take action” on her January warning, President Donald Trump did not immediately fire the adviser over the apparent lie or the susceptibility to blackmail. Instead, Mr. Flynn remained in office for 18 more days. Only after the news of his false statements broke publicly did he lose his job on Feb. 13.
The testimony from Ms. Yates, an Obama administration holdover fired soon after for other reasons, marked her first public comments about the concerns she raised and filled in basic details about the chain of events that led to Mr. Flynn’s ouster in February.
Her testimony, coupled with the revelation hours earlier that thenPresident Barack Obama himself had warned Mr. Trump against hiring Mr. Flynn shortly after the November election, made clear that alarms about Mr. Flynn had reached the highest levels of the U.S. government months before. Mr. Flynn had been an adviser to Mr. Trump and an outspoken supporter of his presidential candidacy in the 2016 campaign.
In a briefing Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Sean Spicer weighed in on the latter case, and was seen as suggesting that Mr. Obama’s advice was taken with a grain of salt because Mr. Flynn had excoriated Mr. Obama during the 2016 campaign.
Ms. Yates, appearing before a Senate panel investigating Russian interference in the election, described two phone conversations and two face-to-face meetings with with Don McGahn, the Trump White House counsel, in which she warned that Mr. Flynn apparently had misled the administration about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador.
White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, had
insisted that Mr. Flynn had not discussed U.S.-imposed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak during the presidential transition period. But they asked Mr. Flynn to resign after news reports indicated he had lied 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 unknowingly making false statements to the public and because we believed that Gen. Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians,” Ms. Yates said.
“To state the obvious,” she added later, “you don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.”
She said she was briefing the Trump White House so that they could take “the action that they deemed appropriate” and that she believed the Russians already had the same information.
Ms. Yates’ questioning by a Senate panel investigating Russian interference in the presidential election was just one portion of a politically charged day that began with combative tweets from Mr. Trump and continued with disclosures from Obama administration officials about a private Oval Office conversation between Mr. Obama and his successor.
Republican senators in the hearing repeatedly pressed Ms. Yates on an unrelated matter — her refusal to defend the Trump administration’s travel ban — and whether she was responsible for leaking classified information. She said she was not.
Mr. Trump shouldered into the conversation in the morning, tweeting that it was the Obama administration, not he, that had given then-Lt. Gen. Flynn “the highest security clearance” when he worked at the Pentagon. Mr. Trump made no mention of the fact that Mr. Flynn had been fired from his position by the Obama administration in 2014.
Ms. Yates filled in new details of the events of Jan. 26, describing contacting Mr. McGahn in the morning and telling him she had something sensitive to discuss in person. Later that day, at the White House, she told him there was an alarming discrepancy between how Trump officials, including Mr. Pence, were characterizing Mr. Flynn’s contacts with Mr. Kislyak and what intelligence officials knew to be true based on recordings they’d reviewed.
The pair spoke several times over the next two days, with Mr. McGahn asking Ms. Yates how Mr. Flynn had fared during an interview with the FBI earlier that week — she did not answer — and why it was the concern of the Justice Department if White House officials had misled each other.
Mr. Flynn’s forced resignation followed media reports that he had discussed U.S.-imposed sanctions on Russia with Mr. Kislyak, which was contrary to the public representations of the Trump White House.
Ms. Yates herself, a longtime federal prosecutor, was fired by Mr. Trump on Jan. 30 after refusing to defend his travel ban. Testimony also revealed Monday that the White House instructed administration lawyers not to let the acting attorney general know that it was working on the ban.
James Clapper, director of national intelligence under Mr. Obama, also testified. He retired when Mr. Trump took office.
Mr. Clapper predicted that the Russians would try to interfere in future elections because they had success, and the “cost was minimal.”
He warned that Russia’s efforts to influence the election posed a threat to democracy, and that the hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails were a worrying taste of the future.
“I believe they are emboldened to now continue such activities, both here and around the world,” Mr. Clapper said. “And I believe they will continue to do so.”
Separately on Monday, former Obama officials said he had raised general concerns about Mr. Flynn with Mr. Trump and had told the incoming president there were better people for the national security post.
Mr. Spicer said in response that if Mr. Obama “was seriously concerned” about Mr. Flynn’s connections to Russia or other foreign countries, he should have withheld Mr. Flynn’s security clearance. Mr. Flynn served under Mr. Obama as defense intelligence chief before Mr. Obama dismissed him.
Mr. Trump repeatedly has said he has no ties to Russia and isn’t aware of any involvement by his aides in any Russian interference in the election. He’s dismissed FBI and congressional investigations into his campaign’s possible ties to the election meddling as a “hoax” driven by Democrats bitter over losing the White House.
After the hearing Monday, Mr. Trump tweeted: “The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?”