Former President Obama warned Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News.
The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office.
The revelation comes on a day that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is expected to testify that Flynn misled the White House about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
NBC News has asked the Trump administration for a response.
According to all three former officials, Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn. The Obama administration fired Flynn in 2014 from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, largely because of mismanagement and temperament issues.
Trump named Flynn as his national security adviser. Flynn, who was conducting private conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions, was then fired three weeks into the administration for misleading Vice President Pence about those conversations.
News of the Obama warning came as Trump sought to get ahead of a day of unpleasant disclosures about his former top foreign policy aide, taking to Twitter Monday to cast aspersions on Yates, the 27-year Justice Department prosecutor who warned the White House that then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had misled officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel, Trump tweeted, referring to Yates' conversation with White House counsel Donald McGahn.
But Trump has left many other important questions about the Flynn affair unanswered, including: What, if anything, did he know about his national security adviser's conversations with the Russian ambassador?
....
It was more than a week after Yates raised concerns about Flynn with McGahn that the story leaked to the Washington Post, prompting a series of events that led to Flynn's ouster from his White House job.
In a second tweet Monday morning, Trump noted that "General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama administration, but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that."
It's true that Flynn got his top level security clearance renewed in January 2016, but what Trump didn't mention is that Flynn should have received a far more thorough vetting in advance of his becoming national security adviser, a job that allows access to the nation's most closely-held secrets. What was the nature of that vetting, and did it raise any flags about Flynn's lobbying work for Turkish interests during the campaign, or his paid appearance on behalf of Russian state media, both now under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies? The White House hasn't said.
Another big question that has never been answered: Did Flynn coordinate with the president over his repeated contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak? Those contacts raised alarms not only within the Obama administration, but within Trump's own transition team, according to reports Friday confirmed by NBC News. ....
Flynn was fired, White House officials said, because he told Vice President Pence he didn't discuss those sanctions with Kislyak, despite FBI transcripts showing that he did. That is among the issues Yates raised to McGahn, according to people who have been briefed on the matter.
People familiar with her plans don't expect her to get into much detail about her warnings regarding Flynn, largely because many of the underlying facts involve classified material.
In advance of her testimony, Republicans have been accusing her of acting politically, and noting that she was fired by Trump for refusing to enforce his travel ban. They call her a partisan Democrat.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ainst-hiring-mike-flynn-say-officials-n756316
Edit:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=236103562&postcount=23
The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office.
The revelation comes on a day that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates is expected to testify that Flynn misled the White House about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States.
NBC News has asked the Trump administration for a response.
According to all three former officials, Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn. The Obama administration fired Flynn in 2014 from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, largely because of mismanagement and temperament issues.
Trump named Flynn as his national security adviser. Flynn, who was conducting private conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions, was then fired three weeks into the administration for misleading Vice President Pence about those conversations.
News of the Obama warning came as Trump sought to get ahead of a day of unpleasant disclosures about his former top foreign policy aide, taking to Twitter Monday to cast aspersions on Yates, the 27-year Justice Department prosecutor who warned the White House that then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had misled officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel, Trump tweeted, referring to Yates' conversation with White House counsel Donald McGahn.
But Trump has left many other important questions about the Flynn affair unanswered, including: What, if anything, did he know about his national security adviser's conversations with the Russian ambassador?
....
It was more than a week after Yates raised concerns about Flynn with McGahn that the story leaked to the Washington Post, prompting a series of events that led to Flynn's ouster from his White House job.
In a second tweet Monday morning, Trump noted that "General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama administration, but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that."
It's true that Flynn got his top level security clearance renewed in January 2016, but what Trump didn't mention is that Flynn should have received a far more thorough vetting in advance of his becoming national security adviser, a job that allows access to the nation's most closely-held secrets. What was the nature of that vetting, and did it raise any flags about Flynn's lobbying work for Turkish interests during the campaign, or his paid appearance on behalf of Russian state media, both now under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies? The White House hasn't said.
Another big question that has never been answered: Did Flynn coordinate with the president over his repeated contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak? Those contacts raised alarms not only within the Obama administration, but within Trump's own transition team, according to reports Friday confirmed by NBC News. ....
Flynn was fired, White House officials said, because he told Vice President Pence he didn't discuss those sanctions with Kislyak, despite FBI transcripts showing that he did. That is among the issues Yates raised to McGahn, according to people who have been briefed on the matter.
People familiar with her plans don't expect her to get into much detail about her warnings regarding Flynn, largely because many of the underlying facts involve classified material.
In advance of her testimony, Republicans have been accusing her of acting politically, and noting that she was fired by Trump for refusing to enforce his travel ban. They call her a partisan Democrat.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ainst-hiring-mike-flynn-say-officials-n756316
Edit:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=236103562&postcount=23
