Trump's Claim of Gaza Visit Draws Scrutiny Amid Factual Discrepancies

[webfact]

Former Trump aide might have been open to Russia blackmail - ex-U.S. official

By Patricia Zengerle

REUTERS

 

White House spokesman Sean Spicer confirms then-President Barack Obama made his concerns known about Michael Flynn to then President-elect Donald Trump, but says Obama could have acted on Flynn while still in office.

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former senior U.S. law enforcement figure said on Monday she warned President Donald Trump's White House in January about then-national security adviser Michael Flynn because she feared he could have been open to blackmail by Russia.

 

Sally Yates, who was briefly the acting U.S. attorney general earlier this year, told White House counsel Don McGahn on Jan. 26 that Flynn had not been telling the truth about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to Washington.

 

Yates, originally appointed by former President Barack Obama's administration, said she feared Moscow could try to blackmail Flynn because it also knew he was not being truthful about conversations with Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

 

Flynn, a retired general who advised Trump's election campaign, has emerged as a central figure in probes into allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow. Russia has repeatedly denied any such meddling.

 

Yates told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing she had been concerned that "the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians."

 

"Logic would tell you that you don't want the national security adviser to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him," she said.

 

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.

 

Obama warned Trump, then president-elect, not to give the post of national security adviser in his administration to Flynn, a former Obama aide said.

 

The Democratic president gave the warning in an Oval Office meeting with Trump two days after the Republican's surprise Nov. 8 election win. The warning, first reported by NBC News, came up during a discussion of White House personnel.

 

White House spokesman Sean Spicer, responding to the reports of the warning, told reporters: "It's true that the president, President Obama, made it known that he wasn't exactly a fan of General Flynn's, which frankly shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, given that General Flynn had worked for President Obama, was an outspoken critic of President Obama's shortcomings."

 

RUSSIA ALLEGATIONS

 

Flynn had been pushed out by Obama in 2014 from his job as director of the military's Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA.

 

Congressional committees began investigating after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered hacking of Democratic political groups to try to sway the election toward Trump.

 

The agencies said Russia was behind "fake news" reports that were disseminated on social media.

 

The Senate Judiciary subcommittee probe is one of three main congressional investigations of Russia and the 2016 U.S. election.

 

The FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies are conducting separate probes.

 

Hours before Monday's Senate hearing, Trump insinuated that Yates had leaked information on Flynn to the media.

 

"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Council," Trump wrote on Twitter, apparently misspelling the word counsel.

 

Trump fired Yates in late January after she defied the White House and refused to defend travel restrictions targeting seven Muslim-majority countries, a policy that Trump has said would help protect Americans from the Islamic State group and other Islamist militants.

 

In the Senate hearing, the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, described as accurate a report in the Guardian newspaper that British intelligence officials became aware in late 2015 about suspicious interactions between Trump advisers and Russian intelligence agents, and that the information was passed on to U.S. intelligence agencies.

 

"Yes, it is (accurate), and it's also quite sensitive. The specifics are quite sensitive," Clapper said.

 

The Trump administration denies allegations of collusion with Russia.

 

Questioning in the hearing often broke along party lines.

 

Some Republicans veered away from questions about Russia’s alleged involvement in the election to focus on issues such as whether Obama administration officials had improperly revealed the names of Trump administration officials contained in surveillance records.

 

Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, questioned Yates heatedly about her objections to Trump’s travel ban.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz questioned Clapper about 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's emails.

 

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel; Writing by Alistair Bell; Editing by Grant McCool and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-09

[Emster23]

National security adviser is hardly the same as being "aide", term used in headline.

I wonder how Spicey could spin this "Russia couldn't blackmail Flynn.... he was already on the payroll and happy with his situation"

[MarkusAUST]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Questioning in the hearing often broke along party lines.

That's pretty sad. If you are genuinely trying to find the truth of a matter, you can not operate along partisan lines. Every question must be asked and every rock turned over, without worrying about how the answer might affect the party image.

[Andaman Al]

10 minutes ago, MarkusAUST said:

That's pretty sad. If you are genuinely trying to find the truth of a matter, you can not operate along partisan lines. Every question must be asked and every rock turned over, without worrying about how the answer might affect the party image.

If only you were the Chairman of the investigation. Yes, it is very sad.

 

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Senator John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, questioned Yates heatedly about her objections to Trump’s travel ban.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz questioned Clapper about 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's emails.

 

Just what did this have to do with Russian collusion?

[iReason]

 

[chilli42]

4 hours ago, Andaman Al said:

If only you were the Chairman of the investigation. Yes, it is very sad.

 

Just what did this have to do with Russian collusion?

Obfuscation

[Skywalker69]

 

 

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/05/20/russia-michael-flynn-donald-trump-influence-brown-borger-ac.cnn/video/playlists/michael-flynn/

 

 

Anderson Cooper 

 

[Rob13]

On 5/9/2017 at 7:13 AM, webfact said:

Former Trump aide might have been open to Russia blackmail

 

Might have been....I might have been in the super bowl last year too. 

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, Rob13 said:

 

Might have been....I might have been in the super bowl last year too. 

I know what you mean. Why would a person who lied about his connections to a foreign country to get a position of great power in the government be a likely target for blackmail? What possible use could that knowledge be to a foreign power?

Whereas why would it be unlikely for someone who presumably has demonstrated no great talent for football, not wind up playing in the Super Bowl?

[Rob13]

13 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

I know what you mean. Why would a person who lied about his connections to a foreign country to get a position of great power in the government be a likely target for blackmail? What possible use could that knowledge be to a foreign power?

Whereas why would it be unlikely for someone who presumably has demonstrated no great talent for football, not wind up playing in the Super Bowl?

 

I was busting on the report.  I don't doubt there's plenty of people close to Trump with enough to hide to make them a vulnerable target.. MSM is looking so hard to slam Trump though, they're getting sloppy with the facts.  It'd be good to see  more substance to the accusations than 'it coulda happened'. 

[ilostmypassword]

43 minutes ago, Rob13 said:

 

I was busting on the report.  I don't doubt there's plenty of people close to Trump with enough to hide to make them a vulnerable target.. MSM is looking so hard to slam Trump though, they're getting sloppy with the facts.  It'd be good to see  more substance to the accusations than 'it coulda happened'. 

They were talking about the risk that would be run if Flynn were in office. He really didn't stay in office that long to make such a contingency likely to have already occurred.

Edited May 20, 2017 by ilostmypassword