Pete Marovich/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Sally Yates, the former acting United States attorney general who drew the ire of President Donald Trump for issuing instructions to the Department of Justice not to defend his first “travel ban” executive order, is scheduled to testify Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into Russian interference in last year’s presidential election.
Yates, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, filled the top position at the Justice Department for less than two weeks prior to the confirmation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general. During that time, her office was probing the relationship between Russian officials and then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
After Flynn’s forced resignation in February, it emerged that Yates privately brought concerns about the retired lieutenant general to the White House, informing the administration that Flynn may have misled officials about conversations with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak prior to Trump’s inauguration.
Yates’ testimony Monday comes after she notified the White House about her intent to appear before the House Intelligence Committee in March. That hearing was then postponed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the committee, leading Yates’ lawyer to raise the question whether the White House took action to prevent her testimony — a suggestion the administration denied.
“I hope she testifies. I look forward to it,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in March. “We had no objection to her going forward… To suggest in any way, shape or form that we stood in the way of that is 100 percent false.”
Nunes’ impartiality in the investigation was later debated by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle after the delay and his trip to the White House to view classified information pertaining to Trump’s allegations that he had been wiretapped during the presidential campaign. Nunes eventually announced he would step away from the Russia investigation in April.
Yates will likely be unable to answer all questions posed to her by the Senate Judiciary Committee as the Russia investigation is still ongoing and much of her story includes the top-secret surveillance activities of the U.S. intelligence community.
In a March letter to the White House about potential testimony to a House panel, Yates’ attorney wrote: “In answering the committee’s questions, Ms. Yates will obviously not disclose any classified information, nor will she provide any information she believes could interfere with any ongoing criminal or intelligence investigations.”
The relationship between Yates and the White House is further complicated by the circumstances surrounding her firing. In January, she instructed the Justice Department not to defend Trump’s controversial order limiting travel and immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East and Africa.
“My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts,” Yates wrote on Jan. 30. “In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”
“At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful,” she wrote.
Yates was replaced as acting attorney general by Dana Boente, who vowed to defend the executive order. Sessions was ultimately confirmed — amid questions about his own relationship with Kislyak — on Feb. 8.
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