Sally Yates testimony has now framed the scandal: Donald Trump was desperate not to defy Russia
Sally Yates is enough of a legal expert to have known how not to tamper with an ongoing investigation during her testimony today. And she’s enough of a professional to have made a point of not stepping on that investigation, even though she’s already wrongly come out on the wrong end of it. But her testimony was enough today to frame the scandal going forward, and to draw a straight line for others to connect the dots on Trump’s complicity.
Yates testified that she went to the White House and held multiple secure meetings with Donald Trump’s White House Counsel Don McGahn, all of them centered around newly appointed National Security Adviser Michael Flynn having been severely compromised by Russia. The final such meeting took place just hours before Trump abruptly fired her. Trump and his White House were clearly aware of the severity of problems surrounding Flynn, yet at the least they chose to ignore it, and at the most they fired Yates so she’d stop pushing the issue.
What Yates didn’t spell out, but she didn’t have to, is that there are only two possible explanations for that series of events. The first is that Donald Trump and his White House were so extraordinarily dense and naive and inept and stupid that they truly could not understand what Sally Yates was telling them about Michael Flynn and Russia, which is difficult to believe even in light of the general ineptness the administration has displayed.
The second explanation is that Donald Trump was so desperate to remain on Vladimir Putin’s good side that he took no action on Michael Flynn because he knew that Flynn was a Russian asset – and since the first explanation isn’t believable, the second explanation has to be true. This isn’t legal proof of anything. But in the court of opinion, where the Trump Russia scandal is playing out by the day, Sally Yates just drew a map for others to make the case to the public that Trump is obviously a puppet of Russia. Help fund Palmer Report
