Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said former national security adviser Mike Flynn’s conduct with Russian officials may have triggered criminal penalties.
“There is certainly a criminal statute that was implicated by his conduct,” she said in a portion of an interview released by CNN.
President Trump said he fired Flynn because he wasn’t up front about his meeting with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak with Vice President Mike Pence. But Democrats continue to argue that Trump didn’t act quickly enough once warned by Yates about Flynn’s meetings.
Yates said that when she warned the White House, she was hoping it would act quickly.
“We certainly felt like they needed to act,” she said.
She also said she believed Flynn was in a “serious compromise situation,” and that Russia had “real leverage” over Flynn because it knew he had not told the full truth about his meetings.
Yates has become a hero to Democrats for standing up to Trump, and for battling Senate Republicans last week over Russia and Trump’s immigration policy.
