4 Reasons The Sally Yates Testimony Was Very Bad For The Trump White House
The highly anticipated Senate testimony of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates took place Monday afternoon and it provided several key pieces of information about the Trump-Russia scandal.
Yates and former director of national intelligence James Clapper confirmed important details about news reports regarding Flynn’s communications with Russia as well as what the Trump White House knew and when they knew it.
1. She confirmed that she warned the White House about Flynn 18 days before Flynn was fired
Sally Yates confirmed press reports that as acting Attorney General she strongly warned the White House that Michael Flynn was compromised. Yates told the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism that on January 26 and 27 she met with and warned White House Counsel Don McGahn that national security adviser Michael Flynn had engaged in “problematic” conduct and that he had lied to the Vice President. Yates explained that the “underlying conduct was problematic in and of itself,” and that it set up the potential for Flynn to be “compromised.”
Here is the key quote from Yates, “We had two concerns. Compromise was certainly the number one concern. And the Russians use compromise material information in a variety of ways, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly. And again our concern was that you have a very sensitive position like the national security adviser and you don’t want that person to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over them.”
“But I will also say that another motivating factor is we felt like the vice president was entitled to know that the information he had been given and he was relaying to the American public wasn’t true.”
Yates confirmed that White House officials were, in fact, warned about Michael Flynn’s conduct more than two weeks before he was eventually fired.
2. More than just a mere “heads up”
During her testimony, Sally Yates also contradicted a key talking point from the Trump White House which says that Yates casually provided them with a “heads up.”
Yates testified that she spoke with White House Counsel McGahn three times about Flynn. She reiterated that “every time this lie was repeated, the misrepresentations were getting more and more specific,” and “every time that happened, it increased” the chances that Flynn would be compromised.
“To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians,” she concluded.
3. Trump team knew about Flynn but hired him anyway
Yates testomoney came on the same day that a new report confirmed that President Obama warned Donald Trump not to hire Michael Flynn during their Oval Office meeting two days after the election.
4. Trump’s timeline is very suspicious, at best
On the same day that she was fired for not enforcing Donald Trump’s unconsitutional Muslim-ban, Sally Yates spoke with White House Counsel about coming to the Justice Department to review evidence regarding Michael Flynn. It has been reported that Yates was instead fired right after her warnings to McGahn.
Not to mention that Trump was also warned by President Obama not to hire Flynn back in November say nothing of all the press reports about Flynn over the last few years.
Let’s also remember that on February 9, it was revealed that Flynn had in fact spoken with the Russian ambassador about the sanctions.
After the news leaked that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador and lied about it, Trump and the White House continued to back Flynn for four more days. But eventyally Flynn was forced to resign.
The obvious conclusion from Yates testimony today is that Trump held onto Flynn after learning about the compromise until he was forced to fire him when the media reported on the issue.
