Yates: Flynn Was in a "Serious Compromise Situation"

Tonight, CNN will air an Anderson Cooper interview of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired by Donald Trump for refusing to defend his Muslim ban, and who was also investigating Michael Flynn's ties to Russia. Ahead of the broadcast, duing which Yates states that Flynn "was in a "serious compromise situation; that the Russians had real leverage" on him, CNN has released three clips from the interview as teasers.

In the following clip, Yates, in her straightforward and understated way, makes abundantly clear how deeply unconcerned the White House was with being urgently alerted that Flynn was compromised by the Russians.

This is beyond "incompetence." Even the most unprepared, overwhelmed, out-of-their-depth, know-nothing dipshit would be able to interpret the dire warnings issued by the Justice Department about Flynn, and act accordingly, given a modicum of patriotism.

This is indifference.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates tells @AC360 that the Russians had "real leverage" over Michael Flynn https://t.co/oQtwNi4BFO pic.twitter.com/SE4OfAoMBU

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 16, 2017

COOPER: The underlying conduct itself was potentially a fireable offense.

YATES: You know, I can't speak to a fireable offense; it was up to the president to make that decision about what he was gonna do. But we certainly felt like they needed to act.

COOPER: Don McGahn actually asked you at that first meeting whether or not you thought the National Security Advisor should be fired.

YATES: Mm-hmm.

COOPER: What did you say?

YATES: I told him it wasn't our call.

COOPER: Was the underlying conduct illegal? Was illegality involved?

YATES: There's certainly a criminal statute that was implicated by his conduct.

[edit]

COOPER: You warned the White House to act.

YATES: Absolutely, yes.

COOPER: To do something?

YATES: We expected the White House to act.

COOPER: Did you expect them to act quickly?

YATES: Yes.

COOPER: There was urgency to the information?

YATES: Yes.

[edit]

COOPER: I'm just wondering, just on a personal level, and I don't know if you can answer this or not, but, you know, you're in government one week, you get fired, and now you're out, and you're watching day after day after day go by, and nothing seems to have happened to the National Security Advisor that you have informed the White House about. Just as a private citizen at that point, did it concern you?

YATES: Well, sure. I was concerned about it, but I didn't know if perhaps something else had been done, that maybe I just wasn't aware of...

COOPER: Maybe that they were keeping him away from certain classified information while they were investigating, something like that?

YATES: Maybe? I just didn't have any way of knowing what was going on at that point.

COOPER: Were you aware that he sat in on a, even from media reports, that he sat in on a phone call with Russia's president?

YATES: Just from media reports.

COOPER: Between the president and Russia's president. [Yates nods] Did you find that surprising?

YATES: Well, sure. Absolutely that was surprising.

There are a number of possible explanations for why the Trump White House was so indifferent to warnings that the National Security Advisor had been and/or could be compromised by Russia. Some are worse than others. None of them are acceptable.