It was reported on Friday that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates would finally be able to testify in a public forum on May 2, a few weeks after it had been reported that the White House tried to block her hearing. The reason for her initial testimony is due to some information she has on the Trump administration which many believe will shed some light Trump's connections with Russian officials.
Yates' investigation details from Obama era
Since President Trump was a candidate, last year, the FBI and the intelligence community began their investigation on that connection after it was discovered that the Democratic National Committee network had been hacked by Russian hackers who thousands of emails.
According to the intelligence community's information, this was done in order to throw the presidential election for the Democrats into turmoil. The view has been that the Trump administration was colluding with the Russians when he blatantly applauded the hacks against his rival, Hillary Clinton, even saying publicly that he hoped Russian hackers would hack the servers to find her missing emails. After winning the election, the Obama administration continued their investigation on President-elect Trump and worked to get as much information on that connection as quickly as possible before leaving office.
President Trump, Nunes against Sally Yates
After his inauguration, one of the first people Trump fired was Sally Yates after she refused to enforce Trump's travel ban on Muslims.
Before this, it was also reported that she, on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ), had informed the Trump transition team that their national security advisor Michael Flynn was susceptible to being blackmailed after it was discovered that he spoke with Russian officials in December about lifting sanctions.
It took weeks before the Trump administration would act, which appeared to show that they didn't prioritize this security breach which raised even more questions.
But more suspicions continued when a former Trump campaign supporter Devin Nunes who heads the House Intelligence Committee -- one of the three bodies running an investigation -- snuck around behind the committee to announce that new intelligence documents had been revealed. These documents apparently favored President Trump's view that he had been surveilled by the intelligence community as a distraction from who the investigation was really on.
Nunes' sabotage would essentially force him off of the investigation. But as Blasting News reported, he was also involved in preventing Yates from talking to the committee after she approached them to testify. The hearing will also include other former Obama officials such as CIA Director John Brennan and the former director of national intelligence James Clapper. While an open forum provides a better chance for Yates to be transparent, as a former official, she might be restricted from providing classified information that could only be told in a closed and private hearing. It's also been reported that Director of the National Security Agency Michael Rogers and FBI Director James Comey will be returning to another hearing in a private setting over the investigation.
