Trump waited more than two weeks after the warning before firing Flynn for failing to disclose the content of his talks with Kislyak and then misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. They have also pointed the finger at Susan Rice, who was Obama's national security adviser.
Depending on what Yates says - and how the White House reacts - any momentum built from last week (and I am somewhat skeptical there was much) could disappear into thin air.
But Trump stunned Obama advisers with his March 4 tweets accusing Obama of wiretapping his NY skyscraper during the election, an explosive allegation that has been denied by FBI Director James Comey and other national security officials.
Yates, appearing before a Senate panel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, described discussions with Trump White House Counsel Don McGahn in late January in which she warned that Flynn apparently had misled the administration about his communications with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador.
Yates said that she arranged for White House officials to see the information, but that she could not say whether the White House followed through on the arrangement.
"You don't want the national security advisor to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him", Yates told the Senate Judiciary Committee Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee.
Another witness testifying Monday was coy about what he knew, also citing legal concerns. But, she said she answered this question to the White House.
Forty-five years ago next month a White House conversation took place that will be remembered by history as the one containing the infamous "18-minute gap."
Around the same time this was all happening, Yates became a hero on the left for announcing that she would not defend Trump's original executive order attempting to temporarily ban travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries. Flynn was forced to resign February 13.
Obama unveils plans for presidential library center on Chicago's South Side
According to The Wall Street Journal , a budget for the project has not yet been put together. Mayor Rahm Emanuel, community leaders, and hundreds of Chicago residents attended.
The Democratic president gave the warning in an Oval Office meeting with Trump two days after the Republican's surprise November 8 election win.
Flynn previously served as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency under Obama until he was reportedly forced out of the post 2014 over internal disagreements over policy and management. Trump's White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in response Monday that if Obama "was seriously concerned" about Flynn's connections to Russian Federation or other foreign countries, he should have withheld Flynn's security clearance.
Sen. Al Franken told the hearing: "Maybe, just maybe, (Trump) didn't get rid of a guy who lied to the vice-president, who got paid by the Russians (to go on) Russia Today, because there are other people in his administration who met secretly with the Russians and didn't reveal it. until they were caught". The White House job required a higher-level clearance, which he never obtained.
Flynn had multiple contacts with Kislyak during the transition, including an in-person meeting at New York's Trump Tower that was also attended by the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Yates and Clapper both stated they had not leaked any information about Flynn, nor had they directed anyone to do so.
The statement didn't refer to another controversial aspect of the Kushner pitch - that investors of $500,000 or more would be able to obtain EB-5 visas to immigrate to the United States.
That changed the story line drastically from the one playing out on social media and live television news in breathless anticipation of Yates' testimony.
For Trump's critics, questions keep arising about potential violations of the "emoluments" clause of the Constitution.
So if President Obama, or anyone else frankly, in the government, was concerned, the question should be asked, what did they do and if nothing then why not, if they really truly were concerned?
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