In late January, Sally Yates, then serving as the acting attorney general of the United States, warned the White House that she believed President Trump's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his talks with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and that Flynn was potentially susceptible to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials told The Washington Post.
Flynn had said multiple times that he and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak had not discussed the sanctions imposed by former President Barack Obama in response to Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election, but a spokesman for Flynn told the Post last week that he "couldn't be certain that the topic never came up." Flynn's account was backed up by Vice President Mike Pence and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. It is unclear what White House counsel Donald McGahn did with the information from Yates, who believed that Pence had a right to know what Flynn had done and believed it was "highly significant" and "potentially illegal," an official with knowledge of her approach told the Post.
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