Wednesday brought Former Deputy Attorney General under Obama, Sally Yates, before the Senate Judiciary Committee probing her knowledge of the Obama Administration's surveillance campaign on the Trump team.
One of the most interesting takes came at the beginning when Sally Yates essentially laid the blame at the feet of "rogue" James Comey.
Senator Lindsey Graham headed the hearing, here's his take from Fox News:
Former FBI Director James Comey has become "radioactive" as more details about his actions during the Russia investigation become public, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. told "Hannity" on Wednesday.
"People are running away from him like he's got the plague," Graham told host Sean Hannity.
Graham made the comments after former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told the panel that an FBI interview of then-incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in January 2017 was done without her authorization and she was upset when she found out about it.
Graham pressed Yates on the details of the bureau's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation and the circumstances surrounding the White House interview of Flynn, at one point asking her, "Did Comey go rogue?"
"You could use that term, yes," agreed Yates, who added that she was "irritated" with Comey for not telling her that Flynn's communications with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were being investigated.
"Rosenstein said, 'No, I wouldn't have signed the [FISA] warrant if I knew then what I know now,'" Graham said Wednesday night. "Sally Yates threw him [Comey] under the bus, [saying] that he went rogue and that he set up General Flynn … to manufacture a crime.
Sally Yates says James Comey blindsided her with Michael Flynn interviewVideo
"What's the takeaway here? That Comey sat on top of one of the most corrupt investigations, Crossfire Hurricane, in the history of the FBI, and the rats are jumping ship. Bad day for Jim Comey."Graham added that there is "no way in hell" that Comey did not know the dossier compiled by ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele that purported to detail President Trump's ties to Russia had "basically [been] proved to be unsound by the Russian sub-source interview in January [2017].
"My goal was to prove that he did know and he got warrants against Carter Page anyway," Graham said. "Here's the point … there will become a time to sell your book, Jim Comey. You can come to the Judiciary Committee and sell your next book because you've got a date with the truth, my friend."
Graham also told Hannity that while he's unsure what steps Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham will take against Comey as Durham wraps up his investigation into the origins of the Russia probe, but for his part, "I'm going to call the intel analyst and the case agent who interviewed the Russian sub-source … and ask them, 'Once you found out the dossier was a bunch of garbage, did you tell anybody about it?'"
And from The NY Post:
Yates oversaw day-to-day operations at the Justice Department during the final stretch of the Obama administration and the early days of President Trump’s administration and confirmed she was upset that Comey cut her out of a supervisory role during a Senate hearing titled “Oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.”
“I was upset that Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally,” Yates told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
According to recently released court documents, Yates was astonished to learn about Flynn’s calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak directly from then-President Obama at a Jan, 5, 2017, meeting in the Oval Office that included then-Vice President Joe Biden, rather than from her subordinate Comey.
Comey later sent two FBI agents, including disgraced anti-Trump official Peter Strzok, to interview Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017, four days into the Trump administration, without first requesting Yates’ permission. That interview formed the basis of a false-statements case against Flynn. The Trump Justice Department is seeking to drop the Flynn case, arguing there was no valid basis for the FBI to interview him.
President Trump weighed in on Twitter about the Yates hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “BIG NEWS! The Political Crime of the Century is unfolding. ObamaBiden illegally spied on the Trump Campaign, both before and after the election. Treason!” Trump wrote.
But Yates avoided giving Republicans a confirmation that Obama or Biden influenced the Flynn case."
What unfolded at the Senate hearing today all but confirms what Donald Trump has been saying for years.
His campaign team was targeted and surveiled using the Fake Steele Dossier and other falsified evidence and the biggest players in the White House knew about it.
Not that anyone will be held accountable.
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