Testifying
Former acting Attorney-General Sally Yates is testifying before a Senate subcommittee.
Ms. Yates said that in the first days of the Trump administration, she told the White House counsel that Mr. Flynn was susceptible to Russian blackmail.
“General Flynn was compromised in regard to the Russians,” Ms. Yates said at the hearing.
She testified that Mr. Flynn’s conduct was “problematic.” Though Ms. Yates did not publicly reveal her underlying concerns, she did refer to discussions about sanctions between Mr. Flynn and the Russian ambassador to the United States.
The White House initially mischaracterized those discussions. Mr. Trump ultimately fired Mr. Flynn over those discrepancies.
“Mischaracterized” and “discrepancies” are polite ways of putting it. There are harsher ways.
The White House assured the public that Mr. Flynn and the Russian ambassador had not discussed sanctions.
Ms. Yates, a temporary holdover from the administration of President Barack Obama, knew otherwise. That is because the United States routinely intercepts and transcribes the phone calls of foreign diplomats.
On Jan. 26, she told Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, that the misstatements made Mr. Flynn vulnerable to foreign blackmail because Russian operatives would know that he had misled his bosses.
“To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians,” Ms. Yates said.
Well it’s apparently not obvious enough to Trump and his buddies.
Yates thought the White House would act on what she told them, but they didn’t. They hung on to Flynn for another two weeks, until the Post ran a story about the warnings.
Mr. Obama warned Mr. Trump against hiring Mr. Flynn when the two met in the Oval Office two days after Mr. Trump was elected, two former Obama administration officials said Monday.
Mr. Obama, who had fired Mr. Flynn as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Mr. Trump that he would have profound concerns about Mr. Flynn becoming a top national security aide, said the administration officials, who were briefed on the Oval Office conversation. Mr. Trump ignored the advice, naming Mr. Flynn to be his national security adviser.
Stupid, arrogant, irresponsible, dangerous man. He doesn’t like Obama because Obama knows how stupid he is, so he names a compromised reckless hothead national security adviser.
And he was tweeting about the mess this morning.
General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration – but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017
The hearing was clearly on Mr. Trump’s mind hours before it started.
In addition to his tweet about Mr. Flynn’s security clearance, Mr. Trump also suggested on Twitter that Ms. Yates had tipped off journalists about Mr. Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador. That is a familiar beat for Mr. Trump, who has said repeatedly that the leaks of classified information are far more significant than the actual connections between Russian officials and the Trump campaign.
Because leaks are an affront to him, Donald from Queens Trump. That makes them more important than anything.
Yeah, Flynn got his clearance during the tenure of Obama. He also got sacked BY Obama. Does Trump not get that when circumstances change intelligent people respond. Come to think of it, I’ve seen so many people defending Trump’s actions by saying ‘planned under Obama’ or some such. the fact that Obama didn’t authorise or carry through such planning seems to zip over their heads. they don’t seem to understand that the government and military will develop responses and plans for all sorts of scenarios that don’t get enacted because they are found wanting in some way. Oh well.
Meanwhile, the GOP senators spent their time questioning Yates on important issues like Susan Rice. Oh, and Ted Cruz’s attempt to call her out for her refusal to enforce the Muslim travel ban… did not go as Cruz had hoped.
The Presudent does not grant security clearances, investigative agencies of the various departments and service branches do. When Flynn resigned from the Army, his military clearance was suspended. Had he gone back into government service within a year or so, it could have been reactivated, but again, the President would not have been in charge of that.
Screechy, I love seeing Lizard man taken down a notch. Where can I see that?
Rob,
Enjoy.
(I think the commentary on that page oversells it a little; I wouldn’t say Cruz was reduced to sputtering. But he clearly wasn’t expecting Yates to have a good answer for his question.)
Thanks Screechy, Fun. I agree he wasn’t sputtering, but you could see him doing the double take thing. I think he was expecting a slam dunk gotcha. At least we know why one of them rose to the top of the Justice department and the other is a failed politician.
Cruz has Resting Smug Face.
‘Does Trump not get that when circumstances change intelligent people respond.’
I think far too many people don’t seem to get this, and I honestly have no idea why. Just to give one obvious example–some misinformed people voted for Brexit because they thought it would increase funding to the NHS. Turns out that is not true. Intelligent people, when given new information, change their minds; we old-fashioned folks might call this experience ‘learning.’ I’m reminded of Ayn Rand’s claim that she hadn’t changed her mind about anything since she was nine years old, somehow suggesting that this was praiseworthy.
“General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration. ”
This sounds a lot like the idea that if one has given consent once, that constitutes a permanent, open invitation. Not surprised he would think like that.
Wait. Wouldn’t approval by Obama be a strike against him? Or would having been fired by Obama be a point in his favour? I’m so confused…
It’s unfortunate that neither major party nominated a suitable candidate for president. I’m very liberal, but what’s the excuse for so many to ignore the obvious vulnerability to blackmail of a President Hillary Clinton?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/09/its-the-30000-wiped-clean-clinton-e-mails/#6bb45a589a67
The problem is, Ruth, if you dig deep enough, most people would be vulnerable to blackmail. Most of us have things in our past that we are not proud of, some worse than others, but most of them capable of being spun by a media insistent on scandal. I realize that Hillary seems to be higher on the blackmail list than most of us, but we need to remember that her life, both personal and professional, has been obsessively examined for nearly 30 years, looking for anything and everything, and making up anything they couldn’t find. (Pizzagate, anyone?)
With Trump on the Republican ticket, there was no such thing as a suitable Democratic candidate, because he would stoop lower and lower, and never stop. He made things up about Hillary, and people believed them. He exaggerated those things that actually happened, and his followers shouted “Lock her up!” The mainstream press jumped on the bandwagon, and I am still reading articles about that “reopening” of the investigation into her e-mails that actually weren’t her e-mails at all, a fact I barely ever read in the noise machine that passes for news these days.
Sanders has no problems, you say? First, how do we know that? He has not been obsessively examined, and Trump mostly left him alone because he didn’t think he could win. Does Bernie have vulnerability? I imagine the answer is yes, we just don’t know what it is.