Yates warned White House that security adviser Flynn could be blackmailed by Russians
Former acting US Attorney General Sally Yates told Congress 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.
The testimony from 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 Flynn’s ouster.
She was giving sworn testimony before a Senate panel investigating possible Russian interference in the election of US President Donald Trump.
Her testimony, coupled with the revelation hours earlier that president Barack Obama himself had warned Trump against hiring Flynn shortly after the November election, made clear that alarms about Flynn had reached the highest levels of the US government months before. Flynn had been an adviser to Trump and an outspoken supporter of his presidential candidacy in the 2016 campaign.
Trump meanwhile, took to Twitter on Monday to decry the subject of the hearings a “total hoax”.
White House officials had insisted that Flynn had not discussed US-imposed sanctions with Kislyak during the presidential transition period, but asked Flynn to resign after news reports indicated he had lied about the nature of the calls.