Will Sally Yates Get to Testify?

Today was the day the House Intelligence Committee was supposed to have a closed-door hearing with FBI director James Comey and NSA chief Mike Rogers. The open hearing with Sally Yates was supposed to be scheduled "some time after that". But in an interview with MSNBC yesterday, Adam Schiff said the Comey/Rogers hearing was going to be "late next week". That sounded to me like the House investigation was being slow-walked once again.

So I called Schiff's office. The aide I talked to said he didn't know anything about the scheduling for those hearings, but would pass along my concerns. Okay. So I called Mike Conaway's office. He's now the acting chair of the HIC, ever since David Nunes pulled his White House briefing stunt and later recused himself. The aide in Conaway's office also didn't know anything about scheduling for the hearings, but was very helpful. He said I should call the offices of the HIC directly. They apparently have their own line and full-time staff, which I didn't know.

So I called the HIC. The woman there was very cheerful and helpful. I told her about the Schiff interview and asked when the Comey/Rogers hearing was supposed to be. She said she didn't know what Schiff was talking about and that he probably misspoke. She said the HIC has a routine closed-door hearing on the calendar for Thursday, May 4th, but that's actually the one that Comey and Rogers are going to attend. I asked if she knew when the Yates hearing was going to be, and she said no, that they were probably working with her and Clapper's offices to find a good time to meet.

Just a reminder...Sally Yates was penciled in to testify before the HIC on March 28th, well over a month ago. March 22nd is when Nunes began running around DC like a decapitated chicken. Oh, he also inexplicably canceled the Yates hearing. In a press conference the day Yates would have testified, Sean Spicer said "I hope she testifies. I look forward to it. We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple." He was asked about a Washington Post story that reported the White House did not want her to testify. So I'm sure the White House is dying to hear Yates' testimony.

I would guess the thing they are most worried about is a clear timeline of when and exactly what Yates brief Trump about Michael Flynn. There's a reasonable chance that her testimony will reveal that the Trump team knew about Flynn's failure to disclose his payments from Turkey and Russia, as well as his discussion of sanctions with the Russian ambassador.

Jan 26th: Yates briefs the Trump White House about Michael Flynn.
Jan 30th: Yates was fired for refusing to enforce the travel ban.
Feb 9th: Mike Pence apparently learns he was lied to about Flynn discussing sanctions.
Feb 13th: Flynn resigns after reports surface about the fact that the Trump White House was briefed about his lies and the possibility of him being vulnerable to blackmail.

So I think the reason the Trump White House isn't super hyped about Yates testifying is that she's going to officially state for the record what has already been reported: That Trump's folks were told on Jan 26th all about Flynn and what he talked about with the Russian ambassador. That they ignored it and kept Flynn on. Mike Flynn would presumably still be the NSA if the report about Yates briefing Trump had never come out.

Also, we're supposed to believe that Yates briefed Trump's team about Flynn on Jan 26th, but Mike Pence didn't know anything about it until Feb 9th? Really? Why? Everyone else in the White House upper echelons knew that Flynn had lied about the calls and that he was a blackmail risk, except for Mike Pence? Why did they keep him out of the loop?

Anyway, Yates is supposed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, chaired by Lindsey Graham, on Monday, May 8th. It's shameful that she's testifying for the first time almost 6 weeks after she was confirmed to testify before the HIC. It's also shameful that her first testimony is not before either of the intelligence committees, which are clearly dragging their feet. Look no further than the fact that the Senate Intelligence Committee, as of this writing, doesn't have any hearings scheduled for this week or this month.

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/

I think there's a reasonable chance that the Trump WH will invoke executive privilege before Monday. Either that, or Trump will try something to distract, delay, or disrupt the testimony. I would hope he doesn't take military action this week as a way to wag the dog, but who knows. I personally give Yates a 50% chance of actually testifying on Monday.

Until then we'll just have to wait and see.