Yates/Clapper Hearing (Part 3)

Up until now, I haven't really talked much about Sally Yates and her testimony.

It had previously been reported that she informed the White House about Michael Flynn and warned them that he was a security risk on Thursday, January 26th, 2017. In the hearing yesterday, we learned that there were actually two in-person meetings, the 26th and the 27th. We also learned that Yates had made arrangements for WH counsel to view the evidence at a later date. However, she was fired on Monday, January 30th, 2017.

So an open question is whether or not that evidence was ever viewed by anyone at the WH. Here is the official account from WH Press Secretary Sean Spicer:

Immediately after the Department of Justice notified the White House Counsel of the situation, the White House Counsel briefed the President and a small group of senior advisors.  The White House Counsel reviewed and determined that there is not a legal issue, but rather a trust issue.
During this process it’s important to note that the President did not have his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, who he trusts immensely, approved by the Senate.  When the President heard the information as presented by White House Counsel, he instinctively thought that General Flynn did not do anything wrong, and the White House Counsel’s review corroborated that.
It is not ordinary* [unordinary] for an incoming National Security Advisor to speak with his counterparts about the issues of concern to them.  In fact, he spoke with over 30 of his counterparts throughout the transition.  As Charles Krauthammer said last night, it is “perfectly reasonable for him to do so.”  The issue here was that the President got to the point where General Flynn’s relationship -- misleading the Vice President and others, or the possibility that he had forgotten critical details of this important conversation had created a critical mass and an unsustainable situation.
That’s why the President decided to ask for his resignation, and he got it.

Okay, so no mention of the fact that Yates warned them that Flynn was compromised and thus posed a national security risk. No mention of the second meeting or the arrangements to view the evidence.

Look at what he did say, though. Upon being briefed about the fact that Flynn had discussed sanctions with the Russians, that the Russians had this information on tape, and that this compromised Flynn, the President concluded that he had done nothing wrong. What??? This is your National Security Adviser, and you find out that he's made himself vulnerable to foreign manipulation, and you think that's cool?

Spicer says it's normal for an incoming NSA to speak to his counterparts. Sure, but how normal is it for them to discuss policy matters when another administration is still in office, to lie about it to everyone else in the WH, and for it to be revealed that the Russians had a recording of the conversation? Don't know about you, but that doesn't sound normal to me. Also, upon hearing that, I wouldn't conclude that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong. I'd say he screwed up bigly, exposing himself to compromise before he'd even assumed the position. That seems grossly incompetent, and if Trump didn't come to that conclusion, what does that say about him?

The headline on CNN this morning was "Why did the White House wait 18 days to fire Flynn?" I'd ask a related question: Why did it take the press almost 90 days to ask this question? We knew about all of this. Yates hammered down the details and got it under oath, but it was still public knowledge. Trump left a compromised person in the top intelligence and national security role for 18 days. Some conservatives are saying that seemed like a reasonable amount of time, that the important thing was that he fired him. No. At the very least, his should have been suspended from sensitive meetings and briefings until the issue was resolved. Instead, it looks like the WH did absolutely nothing until the story was broken by the Washington Post. Only then did they fire him.

I was hoping this story would dominate the news cycle for the entire week, because the question needs to be asked, over and over. Why did the WH do nothing after what they learned from Yates? But the headline on CNN is already moved to the side. And since there are absolutely zero new public hearings scheduled at this time, and the intel committees seem to keep slow-walking this, I'm worried the questions will just sort of fade away.