"I told them again that there were a number of press accounts of statements that had been made by the vice president and other high-ranking White House officials about General Flynn's conduct that we knew to be untrue", Yates said. He said Yates was someone who "clearly showed by the fact that career [Justice Department] attorneys told her the president's lawful order - that she should sign the president's lawful order and then chose not to do it" and argued "that vindicates the President's point".
A former US Department of Justice official has testified she had two meetings and one telephone call with White House officials about Michael Flynn when he was President Donald Trump's national security adviser.
Trump fired Flynn when news broke of his conversations with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.
Separately on Monday, former Obama officials said he had raised general concerns about Flynn with Trump and had told the incoming president there were better people for the national security post. The House and the Senate are also investigating whether there was any collusion between members of Mr Trump's team and Russian Federation.
The alleged conversation with Kislyak, which took place before Trump's inauguration, centered on lifting then-President Barack Obama's sanctions against Russian Federation.
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have now filled in some key pieces of the sprawling puzzle presented by the Russian Federation investigations.
Trump fires FBI Director James Comey
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) released a statement indicating that he may have gotten a heads up that the firing was about to happen. Trump does have the power to fire the Federal Bureau of Investigation director, but only for cause.
Yates, a longtime federal prosecutor and Obama administration holdover, was sacked January 31 by Trump after refusing to defend the administration's travel ban. General Flynn worked as the head of the Military Intelligence Agency (DIA), until he was sacked by President Barack Obama in 2014, reportedly because of his chaotic management.
Throughout the Russian Federation probes, the Trump White House has pointed to testimony earlier this year from Clapper that he had seen no evidence in the January intelligence report of collusion between the President's campaign and Russian Federation. Republican Senators repeatedly pressed Ms Yates on her refusal to defend the Trump administration's travel ban. California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told NPR he believed the Trump administration had tried to stop Yates from appearing because it feared the embarrassment she might cause.
Disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manifort, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former adviser Carter Page and current senior adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
"I believe they're now emboldened to continue such activities in the future, both here and around the world, and to do so even more intensely", he said.
It was only after The Washington Post reported about the contradictions between Flynn's statements and what really transpired that Trump fired Flynn. Billingslea knew Flynn would be speaking to Kislyak, according to two former Obama administration officials, and seemed concerned Flynn did not fully understand he was dealing with a man rumored to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. The president's national security adviser, she said, had lied to the vice president about his Russian contacts and was vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow. What Clapper said was not that he could definitively rule out collusion between elements of the Trump campaign and the Russians but rather that he was unaware of evidence suggesting there was any. On Monday morning NBC News revealed that Obama warned Trump about hiring Flynn beforehand, advice that Trump reportedly thought was a joke. "Why doesn't the media report on this?" the President said in a tweet.
Monday's hearing proved that the Trump White House had advance notice on the risks Flynn posed on national security. He said Yates should be asked how this meeting at the White House made it into the press in February, implying that Yates leaked the information. But that's not what Clapper said on Monday.
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