In yesterdays' Senate testimony, Ms Yates strongly emphasized that her in-person message to the White House Counsel should not be characterized as a "by the way" courtesy. It was a warning delivered in the strongest terms directly to White House Counsel Don McGahn over the course of two in-person meetings at the White House (January 26/27).
Spicer is attempting to downgrade (spin) the warning Sally Yates delivered to the White House. Spicer also lied (an "alternate fact" as they say in the Trump administration) when he stated that the Obama Admin. renewed Flynn's top secret security clearance in April 2016. The fact is that Flynn's security clearance was renewed by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA/which is a Pentagon agency) in April 2016. It was renewed because Flynn concealed the payments he received from the Russian and Turkish governments. This Flynn failure-to-disclose would have been exposed if the Trump Administration had properly vetted Flynn via the FBI/CIA as is required for a sensitive position such as the National Security Adviser. The Trump Admin. never bothered to have Trump loyalist Michael Flynn properly vetted.
I've lost count of how many times that what Asst AG Sally Yates told the White House was 'a heads up' according to Spicey.
Well couldn't the same be said for the Obama team then? Why wasn't he properly vetted before renewing Top Secret Security Clearance?
Seems like both teams failed.
The Pentagon directly and exclusively handled all security clearances for Michael Flynn during his career pre-Trump. Obama fired Flynn from his DIA position in 2014 (ostensibly for his abusive management style). LTG Flynn then decided to retire from the military. As a courtesy, the Pentagon and its agencies renew the security clearances of retired Generals as long as the retired Generals abide by the discharge rules they agree to honor upon discharge. One of those rules is that retired generals are forbidden from receiving any payments or gifts from a foreign power. When Flynn's five year security clearance renewal came up in April of 2016, Flynn failed to denote payments from Russia and Turkey in Section 20 of his SF-86 (the federal government’s national security questionnaire). Flynn's failure here is a violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). In short, Flynn was granted a renewed clearance because he did not disclose the Russia/Turkey payments on the document that required him to do so.Well couldn't the same be said for the Obama team then? Why wasn't he properly vetted before renewing Top Secret Security Clearance?
Seems like both teams failed.