"Or, who in the White House knew that Flynn was talking about lifting sanctions on Russian Federation all along?" says the Washington Post.
But Spicer said it took days to review her contention that Flynn had been "compromised" by his misrepresentations to Pence, possibly leaving himself open to blackmail from the Russians. Yates, on the other hand, was sacked just days after by Trump for directing justice department lawyers to not defend Trump's January 26 executive order banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from travelling to the United States.
But in a Senate hearing on Monday, the former acting attorney general produced just enough fresh intrigue to offer Democrats a new opening in the war of attrition they are waging against Donald Trump's presidency.
"Have either of you ever been an anonymous source in a news report about matters relating to Mr. Trump, his associates or Russia's attempt to meddle in it the election?" asked Sen.
"That created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians", said Yates.
Mr Trump has repeatedly branded the issue of Russian interference "fake news" despite the United States intelligence community's conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself was behind the meddling.
After the hearing Monday, Trump tweeted: "The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?"
Before the hearing, the president had tweeted that it was the Obama administration, not he, that had given Mr Flynn "the highest security clearance" when he worked at the Pentagon. The Obama administration fired Flynn in 2014 from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, largely because of mismanagement and temperament issues.
McIlroy returns with wedding ring, new clubs
Day, the world number three, won last year's event by four strokes after opening with a course-record 63. I think he's got a five-point lead in the world rankings at the minute, which is huge, it really is.
It has been revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump was advised, by former President Barack Obama, against hiring Michael Flynn as his national security adviser.
On Saturday, March 4, Trump tweeted, without providing evidence, that his predecessor, President Obama, had Trump Tower in New York City wiretapped. In that time, he continued to receive top level national security intelligence.
Of the four former Trump campaign aides at the center of the Capitol Hill's Russian Federation probes - including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former foreign policy adviser Carter Page and former campaign adviser Roger Stone - Flynn has generated the most heat following a steady stream of revelations.
We've known for a while that the White House ignored Sally Yates' warning about Michael Flynn. In fact, it'll be especially interesting to know whether Flynn had chatted with his boss - Donald Trump - about his communications with Russian Federation.
The discussion between President Obama and President-elect Trump was revealed on Monday by NBC, citing three Obama administration officials. Clapper said he was not "aware of any instance" of unmasking being used for political purposes.
The pair spoke several times over the next two days, with McGahn asking Yates how Flynn had fared during an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier that week - she did not answer - and why it was the business of the Justice Department if White House officials had misled each other.
Similarly, Yates did not say there was no evidence of collusion.
The Trump administration kept him on for another 18 days despite being handed proof that he had lied to vice president Mike Pence. Worse, though, was the fact that she warned the White House, and yet the Trump administration waited at least 18 days to do anything about it. "When a foreign power interferes in our election, it doesn't matter who they targeted", he said. "But we took him through in a fair amount of detail of the underlying conduct, what General Flynn had done, and then we walked through the various press accounts and how it had been falsely reported".
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