Trump has repeatedly downplayed his team's links to Russian Federation, but instead has launched attacks on the intelligence community for leaking the information to the media. Malcolm Nance highlighted that the Russians have their own transcript of the Flynn call and could blackmail the White House if they lie. For example, she said that she'd twice met with the White House counsel to detail her concerns about Flynn. But he has plenty of proxies willing to jump in for him, including on Monday, when three former Obama administration officials said Obama had personally warned Trump against hiring Michael Flynn as national security adviser. Nor were Democrats as interested in how leaks or the unmasking of USA citizens happened, questions on those issues make up less than 10 percent of all Democrat questions through the session.
Mr Obama's swift return to the spotlight has been cheered by some Democrats, who are still sifting through the wreckage of the party's crushing defeats in the November election.
They discuss the applicability of certain criminal statutes, and McGahn wonders if the White House taking action against Flynn could interfere with FBI investigation against him.
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 concern of the Justice Department if White House officials had misled each other.
Yates described two concerns discussed in the first meeting: "Compromise was certainly the number one concern. And the Russians use compromise material information in a variety of ways, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly", she said. "To state the obvious: You don't want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians". He not only lied himself but he told Vice President Mike Pence this lie and so arranged for Pence to go on television and repeat Flynn's lie. Flynn resigned February 13 after being asked to step down.
Graham asked Yates whether she had any information about whether there was collusion between members of the Trump campaign and Russian Federation.
Hours later he tweeted the same claims via the official White House @POTUS account, which is shocking.
"We felt it was important to get this information to the White House as quickly as possible", Yates said. Finally, we told them that we were giving them all of this information so that they could take action, the action that they deemed appropriate.
During the hearing, Sen. Flynn stayed at his post; he continued to have access to highly sensitive information; and he even sat in on a conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tight-lipped, Yates declined to weigh in on the matter. Yates is expected to recount her January.
Libya adds to OPEC's burden with output at highest since 2014
Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the low oil prices were also due to a slowdown in demand. Its forecast for total output in 2018 rose to 9.96 million bbl/d from 9.9 million bbl/d.
It nevertheless took 18 days before the President, pressed by Mr Pence and others, dismissed the retired army lieutenant general, who had advised him on security issues throughout the 2016 presidential campaign.
Reading aloud to the woman fired by Trump, he reminded: "Whenever the President finds the entry of any alien or any class of alien in the United States would be detrimental to tint of the United States he may by proclamation and for such period as he deem necessary suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem appropriate".
What did the White House do?
January 23rd: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer is asked about Flynn's conversations with Kislyak during a press briefing. Flynn stayed at his job for almost three more weeks and was involved in top-level national security policy decisions, even though Trump was fully aware that he was potentially compromised and had not been truthful with senior administration officials. All the committees are led by Republicans. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Similar to this former senior official, other former Obama officials also disclosed that then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper did not think very highly of Michael Flynn.
Clapper offered several new tidbits during his testimony.
Hackers broke into the computer network of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 campaign, which US officials and cybersecurity experts have publicly tied to Russian intelligence services. The former director of national intelligence testified he's hadn't, but also said he hadn't been aware of the FBI investigation.
During the meeting, McGahn, the White House counsel, does not mention to Yates, the acting attorney general, the travel ban Trump will sign that day.
But why even hire Flynn in the first place?
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