Report: Justice Dept. warned the White House about Flynn possibly misleading administration officials

Mike Pence and Michael Flynn.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

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.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.