The White House was warned in January that US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail, a top former official told lawmakers pm Monday, as the issue of the president’s ties to Moscow returned to the spotlight.
Trump hit back by dismissing suggestions that his team colluded with Russia as a “hoax,” and calling the congressional investigations into Russia’s interference in the US election a taxpayer-funded “charade.”
Former acting attorney general Sally Yates, an appointee of former US president Barack Obama sacked by Trump early in his presidency, took the stand alongside former director of national intelligence James Clapper during Monday’s hotly anticipated three-hour hearing of the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Photo: Reuters
Yates confirmed reports that she had told the White House, six days into Trump’s administration, that Flynn, a former military intelligence chief, had not been honest with US Vice President Mike Pence about his discussions with the Russian ambassador to Washington, leaving him vulnerable to leverage from Moscow.
It nevertheless took 18 days before Trump, pressed by Pence and others, dismissed the retired army lieutenant general, who had advised him on security issues throughout his presidential campaign last year.
“We believed that General Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians,” Yates told the hearing in her first public comments on the scandal, which has dogged the opening months of Trump’s presidency.
“This was a problem because not only did we believe that the Russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. And that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the Russians,” she said.
Yates, who was fired on Jan. 30 after defying Trump over his contested travel ban, did not say what Flynn discussed with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in a number of phone calls in December last year that were secretly monitored by US intelligence.
Pence said in January that Flynn denied those calls involved sanctions placed on Russia by the Obama administration in response to its election meddling.
Trump has repeatedly branded the issue of Russian interference “fake news,” despite the US intelligence community’s conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself was behind the meddling.
In a series of tweets Monday evening, Trump doubled down on that stance.
“The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?” Trump said one post, while in a second, the president targeted Yates — claiming she had “said nothing but old news!” after earlier alleging that she leaked classified information.
Known as a tough and independent prosecutor, Yates has been a target of Trump’s ire since her refusal in January to support his controversial immigration ban on nationals from several Muslim-majority nations.
Yates’ comments came after former Obama officials revealed that the outgoing president himself firmly warned Trump against naming Flynn as national security adviser, just two days after the Nov. 8 election.
Obama had cautioned against Flynn, whom he fired in 2014 as head of the defense intelligence agency, due to his poor record in administration and personnel management.
In separate testimony on Monday, Clapper called Russia’s interference in last year’s election “a clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the very foundations of our democratic political system.”
“I believe they’re now emboldened to continue such activities in the future, both here and around the world, and to do so even more intensely,” he said.
The dual testimony by Yates and Clapper returned the spotlight to the simmering controversy over Russia’s meddling in last year’s US election. Probes by several congressional committees into Russian election meddling have been bogged down for weeks amid accusations by Democrats that Republicans have stalled progress to protect the White House.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
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