May 8, 2017

News Report Undermines Trump’s Claim About Michael Flynn

Trump tweeted ahead of a Senate hearing on Flynn and Russia. The news didn’t cooperate with him.

Andrew Harrer/CNP/Zuma

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With the Senate hours away from hearing testimony about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to preempt the testimony with his own version of events:

Unfortunately for Trump, news broke later on Monday morning that undermined his argument. NBC News reported that President Barack Obama had warned Trump against hiring Flynn during their meeting in the Oval Office on November 10—two days after Trump was elected and months before he appointed Flynn as his national security adviser.

Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates is set to testify before a Senate subcommittee today about her warnings to the White House about Flynn’s ties to Russia. Yates is expected to tell the committee that she warned White House Counsel Don McGahn several weeks before Flynn was forced to resign that Flynn had lied when he denied discussing US sanctions in his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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