Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017
The tweet is just plain dumb, as Yates has nothing to do with any leaks --and Republicans in the Senate did ask her about it repeatedly-- nor did she have the power to influence the inteligence agencies to leak documents.
But Trump's attacks on Yates ended up failing, as she delivered quite a bomb to the Senate.
Yates testified that not only she went to the White House to warn Trump about the fact that Michael Flynn could be blackmailed by Russia, but Trump administrarion officials asked her why did it matter to the Department of Justice if a Trump official lied to another, a reference to Flynn lying to Mike Pence
“Why does it matter to D.O.J. if one White House official lies to another White House official?” asked White House counsel Donald McGahn at a second meeting with Yates the next day after her initial warning.
Which suggests Trump knew Flynn was lying about his involvement with Russia.
Trump, buy the way, did not fire Flynn immediately. He did so only 18 days later, when the scandal on Flynn was about to get worse.
And yet, Trump insisted on his lie that his campaign had nothing to do with Russia. After the hearing he tweeted:
Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is "no evidence" of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017
That's misleading. Clapper and Yates could not talk about classified information and therefore could not confirm or deny anything. Even on non-classified information they could not talk about it because it was part of an ongoing investigation by the FBI. Thus, Clapper had to stick to what was known in the first report on the Trump campaign and Russia.
But after that several Trump campaign members have been found to have Russian ties, including of course Michael Flynn.
Then Trump added this as part of a Twitter tantrum against the Yates testimony before the Senate:
Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today --- she said nothing but old news!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017
On the contrary: Yates revealed Trump pretty much didn't care about her warning about Flynn. And if Trump didn't care, wouldn't that mean there was indeed collusion with Russia?
Just ask yourself this: If Yetes testimony was really "old news", why did Trump post four tweets complaining about it, and why did he bother to change the background for his Twitter account to this:
Because Trump knows he's BUSTED.
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