Michael Flynn’s lies haunt Trump
Former Obama aide Yates says Flynn’s conduct left him vulnerable
Among the first set of advises President-elect Donald Trump received from his predecessor Barack Obama was to not hire retired general Michael Flynn, according to aides of the former president, but he chose to ignore it.
How could he not? Flynn was among his most loyal aides and they had bonded over sports and movies during long hours spent on the campaign trail.
Flynn became Trump’s first appointment as his national security adviser, a key position in the White House overseeing the administration’s foreign and defence polices, a few days after his conversation with Obama at a traditional and ceremonial postelection meeting at the White House. And he was fired shortly after Trump’s inauguration midJanuary for lying to vice president Mike Pence about his contacts with Russians.
Sally Yates, a former Obamaappointed head of the justice department, told a congressional panel at a hearing on Monday that Flynn’s lies, egregious in themselves, had also left him vulnerable, as the country’s national security adviser, to the danger of being blackmailed by the Russians who knew he had misled the administration.
But hours before Yates’s much-awaited testimony, Obama aides told multiple US media outlets in unattributed reports that the former president had told Trump not to hire Flynn.
This was a direct and pointed response to Trump’s attempt through a post on Twitter to shift the blame for Flynn on to Obama, citing the security clearance the general had continued to enjoy despite being fired in 2014.