ROCK STAR

Sally Yates is a rock star.

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified that she warned White House legal Counsel Don McGahn:

-That then National Security Advisor Michael Flynn had lied to the Vice President about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

-That Vice President Mike Pence had repeated those lies to the American people.

-That the Russians knew that Flynn had lied to the Vice President.

-That the National Security Advisor was compromised and susceptible to blackmail by the Russians.

“To state the obvious.”  Said Yates.  “You don’t want your national security advisor compromised by the Russians.”

Yates testified that she did not know what the White House did with the information because she was fired shortly thereafter for refusing to order her staff to defend the President’s Muslim travel ban.

We now know what the White House did with Yates explosive information.  They buried it for 18 days.

For 18 days it was business as usual at the White House; Michael Flynn hiring staff for the NSC, sitting in on classified meetings and participating in key policy decisions.

On February 9 the Washington Post broke the news that Flynn had indeed talked to the Russians about sanctions and lied about it.  The White House continued to stand behind Flynn.  Surrogates Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway stated publically that the president “had full confidence in Michael Flynn.” 

18 days after the Justice Department informed the White House that Flynn had been compromised, amidst a growing media firestorm, Trump finally fired Flynn. Still Trump showed no concerns over Flynn’s misconduct.  To the contrary, Trump defended Flynn saying he was a good man who had been treated unfairly by the “Fake News” media.

As with most everything that goes array for this White House…they blamed it on Obama. 

Spicer said that the Trump White House had not vetted Flynn because he had maintained the security clearance granted him by the Obama administration.  We now know that was just another in a series of White House lies. 

The Trump administration did in fact vette Flynn.  They knew about his trip to Russia, the speech paid for by the Russian propaganda arm, RT and his undisclosed lobbying for the Turkish government.  They just ignored it.

We also know that Trump had been warned of Michal Flynn’s questionable conduct before, during and after the election.  In fact President Obama himself warned Trump not to hire Flynn in their meeting before the inauguration.  Trump hired him anyway; and continued to stand by him until the media heat made him uncomfortable.

The question remains…why did it take 18 days to come to that most obvious of decisions.

As for Sally Yates…the White house did its best to label her an Obama administration holdover with partisan leanings.  Yates stood strong and defended her actions.

The smear campaign played out once more in yesterday’s hearings. 

Senator Ted Cruz…a self-proclaimed constitutional scholar who believes he is intellectually superior to everyone in the room and wants them to know it… tried to discredit Yates as a partisan appointee who used her political leanings as grounds for refusing to defend the president’s Muslim ban.  Trump fired Yates for that refusal.

Cruz asked Yates if she were familiar with a statute that gives the president wide ranging authority to close the border to aliens if he believes it is in the interest of national security. Cruz quoted that statute and asked Yates if she was familiar with its language.

Yates replied she was.  She said that she was also familiar with a subsequent statute that says visas cannot be denied on the basis of race, nationality or place of birth.  She said that she believed that Trump’s ban was about religion and therefore unconstitutional noting that three federal courts had back up her interpretation.

Cruz was mortally wounded but refused to concede.  He asked Yates if she could cite one instance in 200 years where the justice department had ruled on the legality of a policy and the attorney general had refused to enforce the directive.  Yates said she could not…but added nor could she find another instance “where the justice department  was advised not to inform the attorney general until after it was over.”

Game set match.

As I write this the White House is continuing to lie about all things Michael Flynn.  The president has unleashed yet another twitter storm trying to discredit Yates and the “fake news” media that that keeps pressing the issue.  To say this administration has an ethics problem would be a vast understatement.

During her confirmation hearing Sally Yates was asked if the president told her to do something that she believed was wrong or illegal, would she speak truth to power and say “no.”  Yates said she would.

Sally Yates stood up to the bully…spoke the truth and defended the constitution.  That demonstration of honesty and character cost Yates her job.

This White House could use more people like Sally Yates.