As the implications of National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s phone call with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. continue to unfold, the Washington Post reported on Monday that outgoing Obama administration officials were concerned about one particular possibility—that Flynn had made himself vulnerable to threats of Russian blackmail. After some internal debate at the highest levels of government between then–Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, and FBI Director James Comey about whether to inform the incoming Trump administration of Flynn’s potentially illegal correspondence with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the Post reports, shortly after Trump took office, Yates, who stayed on as acting attorney general, and another official briefed Trump White House counsel Donald McGahn.
From the Post:
The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the Russian diplomat, had told Vice President-elect Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the officials said. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the information.
In the waning days of the Obama administration, James R. Clapper Jr., who was the director of national intelligence, and John Brennan, the CIA director at the time, shared Yates’s concerns and concurred with her recommendation to inform the Trump White House. They feared that “Flynn had put himself in a compromising position” and thought that Pence had a right to know that he had been misled, according to one of the officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.
Flynn has for weeks denied that he spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Obama administration sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the country’s meddling in the presidential election. “From that call and subsequent intercepts, FBI agents wrote a secret report summarizing Flynn’s discussions with Kislyak,” the Post reports. “Yates … considered Flynn’s comments in the intercepted call to be ‘highly significant’ and ‘potentially illegal,’ according to an official familiar with her thinking.”
