We know in retrospect that that inauguration took place against the backdrop of an open and active fbi counterintelligence investigation into the russian attack on the election that made that inauguration possible. And on the key question of whether the new president s campaign had been in on the russian attack somehow. We know looking back that it was happening in the background. That wearing happened on a friday, january 20th. The very next week, though, the whole thing started to shake and rattle within the first week we now know. The inauguration is friday. Theres the weekend. Then the first tuesday after the inauguration, the National Security adviser got interviewed by the fbi. When the fbi does that kind of interview, the agents who conduct the interview produce a written report about it. Its called a 302. Swearing in was on friday, then theres the weekend, then the following tuesday National Security adviser gets interviewed by the fbi. The consequences of that interview are still ringing out like i mean, church bells, air raid sirens, depending on your meta forrical adjustment towards these things. All these weeks and months later, what happened in that fbi interview still resonating. It set off alarms so much so that the top levels of the Justice Department didnt even wait for the agents who interviewed mike flynn to write up their 302. They didnt wait for those agents to write their report. Did you have the 302 with you when you were in the white house . Did you show it to white House Counsel and had you seen it at the time you went up to the white house . No. The fbi had conducted the interview on the 24th. We got readout from the fbi on the 25th, a detailed readout specifically from the agents that had conducted the interview. But we didnt want to wait for e 30because we felt that it was important to get this information to the white house as quickly as possible. We did not wait for the 302. We needed to get this information to the white house as quickly as possible. They didnt even wait for the fbi agents who did the questioning, didnt wait for them to write it up. It is hard to overstate how unusual it is that the serving attorney general of the United States would personally take over Something Like this, would personally handle it, but thats what happened here. Inauguration friday, fbi questions the National Adviser on tuesday. Wednesday those fbi agents go top brass of the National Security division of the Justice Department and ultimately to the serving attorney general of the United States. They go to those top officials with whatever it is that happened in that interview, and then the very next morning, not even one week into the new administration, the acting attorney general of the United States calls the white house and says hey, weve got a problem. We cannot talk about this on the phone. We need to meet on this personally and directly, now. Ms. Yates, what did you tell the white house about mr. Flynn . I had two inperson meetings and one phone call with the white House Counsel about mr. Flynn. The first meeting occurred on january 26th. I called Donald Mcgahn first thing that morning and told him that i had a very sensitive matter that i needed to discuss with him, that i couldnt talk about it on the phone and i needed to come see him, and he agreed to meet with me later that afternoon. I took a Senior Member of the National Security division who was overseeing this matter to meet with him. We met in his office at the white house which is a skiff so we could discuss classified information in his office. Again, it is remarkable here that this is not even one week into the new administration. Swearing in was a friday, this is the thursday after the this is six days into the new presidency. And the serving attorney general, the acting attorney general, has gone to the white House Counsels office which has a sensitive compartmented information facility a skiff where they can handle classified material inside that office. This is after the fbi questioned the National Security adviser and now its the acting attorney general along with somebody you could reasonably include is the other senior careered Justice Department person there, the person who was then serving as the acts chief of the National Security division at the Justice Department. That person is a career Justice Department official who was only leaving that job now. But in that job, she has been overseeing all the trump and russia investigations, so its we believe the head of the National Security division at the department of justice, the acting attorney general, they go to the white house. Unbelievably senior people handling this personally. We will not talk about this on the phone, we will do this personally. They go to the white house, they go to the office the white House Counsel. This is the white House Counsel, don mcgahn. Again, attorney general, we believe the National Security division chief at doj, they rushed to the white house without even waiting for the fbi agents to write up their report on their questioning of mike flynn. They rush to the white house to notify the white House Counsel about what they have learned about the National Security adviser mike flynn. Heading into today, everybody thought this was going to be testimony that would be kind of a letdown, that we already knew everything sally yates was going to say. But right off the bat, she gives you that incredible timeline and that incredible urgen si how they went to the white house and how fast. And then she said this. I dont think anybody has any idea what this means exactly. So i told them again that there were a number of press accounts of statements that had been made by the Vice President and other high rking white house officials about general flynns conduct that we knew to be untrue. And we told them how we knew how we had this information, how we had acquired it and how we knew it was untrue. And we walked the white House Counsel who also had an associate there with him through general flynns underlying conduct. The contents of which i obviously cannot go through with you today because its classified, but we took him through underlying conduct, and then we walked through the various press accounts and how it had been falsely reported. We walked him through general flynns underlying conduct, what general flynn had done. I cannot go through that with you today because its classified. We walked him through general flynns underlying conduct. What underlying conduct . What we had known before today, what at least had been reported before today is sally yates became aware that mike flynn was not telling the truth about his contacts with russian officials. Today she said aside from him not telling the truth, his underlying conduct itself was problematic. What underlying conduct . The first thing we did was to explain to mr. Mcgahn that the underlying conduct that general flynn had engaged in was problematic in and of itself. On january 24th you just testified that National Security adviser flynn was interviewed by the fbi about his underlying conduct and that underlying conduct was problematic, because it led to the conclusion that Vice President pence was relying on falsehoods. What was that underlying conduct and are you convinced that the former National Securities adviser was truthful in his testimony to the fbi on january 24th . Again i hate to frustrate you again, but i think im going to have to because my knowledge of his underlying conduct is based on classified information, and so i cant reveal what that underlying conduct is. Its why i had to do sort of an artificial description of events without revealing that conduct. My knowledge of his underlying conduct is based on classifd information, so i cannot reveal at that underlying conduct is. But apparently she told the white house that underlying conduct was problematic in and of itself, in addition to the fact that he was lying about it. What was the underlying conduct . When the National Security adviser was fired 24 days into the new administration, after what we know was an explicit warning from the outgoing president that mike flynn should not be hired, that there were serious concerns about him. After he was hired anyway, the white house line was that he had to be fired because he lied to other people at the white house, particularly the Vice President about his contacts with the russian government. Well, now we know from the acting attorney general at the time that in addition to mike flynn lying about his contact with the russian government, there was also something problematic about his underlying conduct and its something that cannot be discussed in an unclassified setting. What did he do . The other problem with the white house line on mike flynn that has never made sense is the timing. If you want to know whether the white house has anything to hide here, whether theyre covering anything up here, then you have to ask whether their explanation for firing mike flynn makes any sense. And part of it that makes no sense is why after this extraordinary inperson warning from the attorney general herself and a senior National Security person at doj, after this extraordinary warning, they say we cannot discuss this on the phone. We need to meet about this today. Get the skiff ready. After that remarkable warning why is it the white house didnt do anything about flynn for weeks . Do you believe the administration took your warnings seriously when you made this extraordinary effort to go to the white house and in person brief the white House Counsel on the 26th and 27th . Do you think they took appropriate steps with regards to general flynn as the National Security advisory given he remained a frequent participant in very highlevel National Security matters for two weeks . Well, certain in the continuous of the meetings mr. Mcgahn certainly demonstrated that he understood this was serious. So he did seem to be taking it seriously. I dont have any way of knowing what if anything they did. If nothing was done, then certainly that would be concerning. So you dont know whether they took any steps to restrict his access to classified information to investigate him further . Again, i was gone after the 30th. I wouldnt know if any steps has been communicated to the department of justice, but i was not aware of any, no. Had you not been fired, would you have recommended to the white House Counsel that they begin further investigations into the National Security adviser or that they restrict his access to sensitive and classified information . Its a bit of a hypothetical. Had i remained at the Justice Department, and if i were under the impression that nothing had been done, then yes, i would have raised it again with the white house. Had i still been there and they done nothing to act on this i gave them, i would have raised it. If nothing was done, certainly that would be concerning. Had i still been there, yeah, i would have raised it again. Luckily, they got rid of her. The president fired sally yates the monday after she had her two meetings about flynn. So the inauguration on friday, fbi interviews flynn on tuesday. Department of justice pow wows about it, what are we going to do about that on wednesday . Thursday, theres the meeting at the white house. On friday, a followup meeting, following monday they canned her. So when the white house did nothing in response to sally yates warning, she was out of government by then. While mike flynn stayed on as National Security adviser as if nothing had happened. That got senator al franken of minnesota slightly worked up today. And we have mcgahn, doesnt understand whats wrong with this . And then we have spicer the press secretary saying the president was told about this. The president was told about this in late january according to the press secretary. So now hes got a guy who has been the former president said dont hire this guy. Hes clearly compromised. Hes lied to the Vice President , and he keeps him on, and he lets him be in all these classified lets him talk with putin. President of the United States and the National Security adviser sit in the oval office and discuss this with putin. We had known before today that whatever happened with mike flynn, the white house has been telling a story about him that does not add up or make sense. For example, just as one part of this, Vice President mike pence, he was the head of the transition when the transition was notified multiple times, including in person twice by flynns lawyers, and in writing by congress that mike flynn had taken foreign payments. Foreign payments were also the subject of multiple press reports. Nbc news reports that the trump transition had direct knowledge of mike flynns payments from foreign sources, but nevertheless, Vice President mike pence, head of the transition, he proclaims he was perfectly ignorant of that fact until weeks after mike flynn was fired. Let me say hearing that story today was the first i heard of it. That is not credible. Whether or not you care about what the Vice President knew abt mike flynn, whether you care about that subject itself or not, the bigger question is why are eyelling this lie about it . Why are they lying about this stuff . They are telling stories about mike flynn that make no sense given we now know about the facts. It is not good for the white house that they cannot come up with a story about mike flynn that has the benefit of being true. And that was a problem for them before today, it became a much bigger problem for them after today. Before today, we knew they had inexplicably waited 18 days after being warned about mike flynn before they fired him. Today that delay became all the more inexplicable and even a bit scary when we learned from sally yates what the quality of her warning was about mike flynn. We were concerned that the American People has been misled about the underlying conduct and what general flynn had done. And additionally that we werent the only ones that knew all of this that the russians also knew about what he had done and the russians also knew that general flynn had misled the Vice President and others. Because in media accounts it was clear from the Vice President and others that they were repeating what general flynn told them and this was a problem because not only did we believe that the russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. That created a compromised situation, a situation where the National Security adviser essentially could be black mailed by the russians. We believed that general flynn was compromised with respect to the russians. To state the obvious, you dont want your National Security adviser compromised with the russians. What did you think would happen if he were, and how do you believe he would have been compromised . We had two concerns, compromise was certainly the number one concern. The russians can use compromised material, information, in a variety of ways. Sometimes overtly, and sometimes subtly. And again, our concern was that you have a very sensitive position like the National Security adviser, and you dont want that person to be in a position where, again, russian have leverage over him. You dont want the National Security adviser to be in a position where the russians have leverage over him. Now, in terms of what impact that may have had or caused, i cant speak to that, but we knew that that was not a good situation, which is why we wanted to let the white house know about it. We wanted to let the white house know about it. Assuming they would do something about it. And then they did nothing with that information. They let him stay on in his job as National Security adviser after this extraordinary warning about the kind of leverage that russia had over him, leverage they could conceivably use to control him. And there by to influence the behavior of the National Security adviser. Who is the top security adviser to the president of the United States they held onto him. For 18 days until it ended up in the press. Then they got rid of him. Most republican senators on this committee today were mostly concerned about fact that this ever ended up in the press. Its a remarkable thing in its own right. But despite those guys, we know a lot more about this investigation, specifically about the still unexplained behavior of this white house when it came to this redhot issue of their secret contacts with the russian government. And that is bad news. That is very, very bad news for this white hou