President Donald Trump’s spin that Michael Flynn was “treated badly” when he was fired by Trump for lying to the vice president about talking sanctions with a Russian ambassador melted as former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates related how FBI investigators sent her hurrying to the White House just days after Trump’s inauguration with warnings that Flynn was vulnerable to foreign blackmail. She advised the White House that Flynn had misled his bosses about conversations he’d had with the Russian ambassador.
She would not talk publicly about Flynn’s “underlying conduct,” which she termed “problematic in and of itself,” because it is classified, but it has been widely reported that Flynn discussed the Obama-ordered sanctions against Russia over that country’s meddling in our election. Washington Post allegations that Flynn had talked about sanctions with Russia were what Vice President Mike Pence denied on Meet the Press in January.
Yates told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee: “To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.”
Despite Yates’ two meetings and a phone call with White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II, and despite the fact that White House spokesman Sean Spicer later said President Trump was informed “immediately,” Trump kept Flynn on the staff for 18 days – until the Washington Post story appeared.
Yates, on the other hand, was fired almost immediately – ostensibly for refusing to defend Trump’s executive order barring refugees and travel from seven majority-Muslim countries, which, as per the requirements of her then-job, she said had no reasonable defense because it was unconstitutional. Numerous courts have since backed her up, and the Trump administration eventually withdrew the order.