{UAH} Trump Officials Tried To Stop Sally Yates From Testifying On Russia Ties

When that didn't work, the House Intelligence Committee chair canceled the hearing.

By Christina Wilkie, Marina Fang

Lawyers for President Donald Trump tried to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on links between Trump campaign staff and Russian officials, according to correspondence first obtained by The Washington Post.

In a series of letters last week, Yates' lawyer, David O'Neil, accused the Trump Justice Department of trying to silence Yates by asserting that "all information Ms. Yates received or actions she took in her capacity as Deputy Attorney General and acting Attorney General are client confidences that she may not disclose absent written consent of the department." 

Yates served as deputy attorney general in the Obama administration and then as acting attorney general in the first few weeks of the Trump administration. Trump fired her on Jan. 31, after she refused to enforce the president's original executive order banning immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries. 

O'Neil went on to write that he and his client disagreed with the idea that her testimony required permission. "We believe that the department's position in this regard is overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the department's historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials,'' he wrote.

"In particular, we believe that Ms. Yates should not be obligated to refuse to provide non-classified facts about the department's notification to the White House of concerns about the conduct of a senior official," he wrote. "Requiring Ms. Yates to refuse to provide such information is particularly untenable given that multiple senior administration officials have publicly described the same events.'' 

O'Neil emphasized that Yates would not reveal any classified information in the Intelligence Committee hearing.

On Friday, the Justice Department wrote back to say that any approval concerning testimony about communications with the White House needed to come not from the department but straight from the White House. O'Neil then wrote to White House Counsel Don McGahn, told him what the Justice Department had said, and informed him that Yates planned to testify Tuesday, March 28, as originally scheduled.

Within hours after that letter was sent on Friday, Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) canceled the scheduled hearing, which also would have included testimony from top intelligence officials. On Tuesday, the White House denied that it had taken any action to prevent Yates from testifying.

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