Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former acting Attorney General General Sally Yates appear before the Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism on May 8. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Key moments from Sally Yates' Flynn testimony 
 
 Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates broke her silence Monday, detailing her role in the ousting of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. 
 
 Her testimony, before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, came amid a series of investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Below are highlights from the hearing, which also included testimony from former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. 
 
 Yates says Flynn was susceptible to blackmail 
 
 Yates for the first time publicly detailed her efforts to alert the White House that Flynn was potentially susceptible to Russian blackmail. 
 
 She told senators she held a meeting Jan. 26 with White House counsel Don McGahn in which she laid out the evidence that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other senior officials about the nature of his phone calls with Russia’s ambassador. 
 
 “To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians,” Yates said, explaining that the Russians knew Flynn had misled Pence and could potentially use this to blackmail him. 
 
 Flynn was not fired until Feb. 13, after it had become public that he misled Pence. Democrats point to the 18-day gap between Yates' warnings and Flynn's firing as evidence the White House did not take the concerns seriously. 
 
 Yates’ own firing creates some awkward moments 
 
 As Yates discussed her efforts to inform the White House that Flynn was compromised, her story came to an abrupt end. She could not say what happened after Jan. 30 — the day she herself was fired by Trump after she refused to defend Trump’s first travel ban executive order in court. 
 
 Asked multiple times about how the White House reacted to her warnings about Flynn, Yates said she didn’t know. “I was no longer with DOJ after the 30th,” she said. 
 
 Yates learned about travel ban from the media 
 
 Yates said she met with McGahn the same afternoon the administration rolled out its executive order targeting citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, but was not told about it at the time. 
 
 “I learned about this from media reports,” she told the subcommittee of the Jan. 30 meeting, which turned out to be her last day at the Justice Department. 
 
 Yates’ comment came after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pointedly asked why she went against the Justice Department’s prestigious Office of Legal Counsel, which found the executive order to be lawful on Jan. 27. 
 
 "In the over 200 years of the Department of Justice history, are you aware of any instance in which the Department of Justice has formerly approved the legality of a policy and three days later the attorney general has directed the department not to follow that policy and to defy that policy?" Cruz asked. 
 
 Yates said she wasn't but added that she was also not aware of any instance where the counsel was advised “not to tell” the country’s top law enforcement official about such an action until after it was over. 
 
 She also strongly defended her decision and reiterated that she viewed the executive order, which was blocked by the courts, as unlawful. 
 
 “I did my job the best way I knew how,” she said. “I looked at this EO, I looked at the law, I talked with the folks at the Department of Justice, gathered them all to get their views and their input, and I did my job.” 
 
 Clapper was not aware of the FBI's investigation into Trump 
 
 Clapper told lawmakers that he was unaware the FBI had launched an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials last summer. 
 
 He noted “the unique position of the FBI” between intelligence and law enforcement. “As a consequence, I was not aware of the counterintelligence investigation Director Comey first referred to during his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20th, and that comports with my public statements.” 
 
 Subcommittee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) used his time to ask how Clapper couldn’t have known about the investigation if he approved the intelligence community’s January assessment on Russian meddling, wondering if the reason is because the inquiry wasn’t “mature enough.” 
 
 “That’s a possibility,” Clapper replied. He speculated that another reason the investigation didn’t reach him is the evidence gathered to that point wasn’t conclusive enough. 
 
 Clapper and Yates denied being anonymous sources on Trump and Russia 
 
 Asked by Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, whether either had “ever been an anonymous source in a news report about matters relating to Mr. Trump, his associates or Russia's attempt on meddle in the election,” both Clapper and Yates denied doing so. 
 
 Key moments from Sally Yates', James Clapper's Flynn testimony poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201705/2858/1155968404_5426384339001_5426380263001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true 
 
 “No,” Clapper said. 
 
 “Absolutely not,” answered Yates. 
 
 Both also denied authorizing others in their respective agencies to be anonymous sources in such stories. 
 
 Earlier in the day on Twitter, Trump had urged the committee to question Yates “under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.” 
 
 U.S. intelligence was told about possible Trump-Russia ties by allies, Clapper says 
 
 Clapper confirmed media reports that the United Kingdom and other European allies passed along information to U.S. intelligence agencies in 2016 of contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials. 
 
 “Yes, it is and it’s also quite sensitive,” Clapper said about the accuracy of the reports in response to questions from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat. 
 
 “The specifics are quite sensitive,” Clapper added 
 
 He said that there was evidence of Russian digital snooping going back to 2015 but that the activity was mainly “information gathering,” such as viewing voter registrations rolls around the country. 
 
 Franken speculates on Trump’s motivations — and gets a laugh 
 
 Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) devoted part of his time to ruminating on why it took Trump 18 days to fire Flynn after learning that he had misled Pence. But Yates wasn’t eager to speculate. 
 
 “We're trying on put a puzzle together here, everybody,” Franken told the room. “And maybe, just maybe, he didn't get rid of a guy who lied to the vice president, who got paid by the Russians, who went on Russia Today, because there are other people in his administration who met secretly with the Russians and didn't reveal it til later, until they were caught. That may be why it took him 18 days, until it became public, to get rid of Mike Flynn, who was a danger to this republic.” 
 
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 He then asked Yates, “Care to comment?” The room erupted in laughter, knowing that she would not be eager to offer her opinion on Trump’s motivations. 
 
 “I don't think I'm going to touch that, senator,” she said. 
 
 Ted Cruz asked about the Clinton email scandal 
 
 Cruz devoted several of his first questions to the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State. 
 
 Without naming them, Cruz described Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s practice of forwarding email messages from the server to her husband, Anthony Weiner, and asked Clapper what concerns that behavior might raise. 
 
 “It raises all kinds of potential security concerns,” Clapper said in response to Cruz’s hypothetical. ||||| Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified to a Senate Judiciary Committee panel on Monday in one of the most hotly anticipated hearings of the Trump era to date. 
 
 Yates’s testimony was a huge media event, commanding hours of live cable news coverage. 
 
 She came before the committee following several media reports that she had warned the White House that then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had been compromised almost three weeks before he resigned. However, nothing had been heard on the record from Yates herself. 
 
 Yates was fired over a separate matter days after delivering the warning about Flynn. She declined to order the Department of Justice to defend President Trump Donald John TrumpTillerson: Russia already looking to interfere in 2018 midterms Dems pick up deep-red legislative seat in Missouri Speier on Trump's desire for military parade: 'We have a Napoleon in the making' MORE’s controversial executive order that sought to temporarily bar most travelers and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim nations, as well as indefinitely halt the admission of Syrian refugees. 
 
 In a further twist, Yates’s Monday testimony was preceded by tweets from Trump implying, without evidence, that she had leaked classified information to the media. She denied this during the hearing, as did former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who testified alongside her. 
 
 In the hours before Yates appeared, NBC News also broke the news that former President Barack Obama Barack Hussein ObamaGOP lawmaker: Dems not standing for Trump is 'un-American' Forget the Nunes memo — where's the transparency with Trump’s personal finances? Mark Levin: Clinton colluded with Russia, 'paid for a warrant' to surveil Carter Page MORE had personally warned Trump against appointing Flynn to such a sensitive role before he assumed office. 
 
 What were the most important points from the hearing itself? 
 
 Yates’s testimony is trouble for the White House 
 
 The drama and detail of Yates’s testimony amounted to bad news for the White House. 
 
 The core of her account was that she held two meetings with White House counsel Don McGahn on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27 warning about the dangers pertaining to Flynn. The former lieutenant general would not resign until Feb. 13, after the shortest-ever tenure as national security adviser. 
 
 As Yates portrayed it, she was clear with McGahn that Flynn was compromised. She believed — correctly, as it turned out — that Flynn had misled senior figures in the administration, including Vice President Pence, about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, during the transition period. 
 
 “To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians,” Yates said, in one of several memorable lines during the hearing. She also raised the possibility of Flynn being blackmailed by the Russians. 
 
 The way in which Yates described her encounters with McGahn was very different from the more casual tone adopted by the White House. Soon after Flynn left, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that Yates had merely sought to “give a quote ‘heads-up’ to us on some comments that might have seemed in conflict with what [Flynn] had sent the vice president.” 
 
 Yates, by contrast, characterized her desire for a meeting as “a matter of some urgency” because of the gravity of the issue. 
 
 There were also some intriguing details in her testimony. Yates said that McGahn had asked her how Flynn had performed when FBI agents interviewed him — a question she said she had declined to answer. The FBI interview apparently took place inside the White House. 
 
 Taken as a whole, Yates’s testimony only sharpens the question of why the Trump administration left Flynn in such a sensitive position after receiving her warning. 
 
 The battle over Trump’s ‘travel ban’ has not ended 
 
 The issue central to Yates’s firing still generates political heat — as was shown during one of the most spectacular clashes of the hearing. 
 
 Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzSasse statement: Trump nominee who spread conspiracy theories has a ‘tinfoil hat’ Coalition of 44 groups calls for passage of drug pricing bill For the sake of our democracy, politicians must stop bickering MORE (R-Texas) needled Yates over her decision to refuse to defend the travel ban. The Texas senator asked her if she was familiar with a certain part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that gives the president broad authority to decide who can enter the United States. 
 
 Yates, who seemed prepared for that line of attack, shot back that she was equally familiar with another statue that outlaws discrimination in immigration matters on the basis of race or nation of birth, among other things. 
 
 Yates held her own against similar questioning from Sen. John Cornyn John CornynDems confront Kelly after he calls some immigrants 'lazy' McConnell: 'Whoever gets to 60 wins' on immigration GOP senators turning Trump immigration framework into legislation MORE (R-Texas), who complained that she had “countermanded an executive order of the president of the United States because you disagreed with it as a policy matter.” 
 
 Republicans are likely to defend those questions as legitimate inquiries into whether Yates overreached or let her personal views cloud her professional judgment. Democrats will see them as an effort to delegitimize her other testimony. 
 
 No break from partisanship 
 
 In his opening remarks, Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamMcConnell: 'Whoever gets to 60 wins' on immigration Overnight Tech: Uber exec says 'no justification' for covering up hack | Apple considers battery rebates | Regulators talk bitcoin | SpaceX launches world's most powerful rocket Overnight Cybersecurity: Tillerson proposes new cyber bureau at State | Senate bill would clarify cross-border data rules | Uber exec says 'no justification' for covering up breach MORE (R-S.C.) emphasized his hope that the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election could transcend party lines. 
 
 “When a foreign power interferes in our election, it doesn’t matter who they targeted, we are all in the same boat,” Graham argued. 
 
 But the questioning of Yates and Clapper did not fulfill that hope. 
 
 GOP senators spent much of their time trying to excoriate Yates for her conduct on the executive order or raising concerns about leaks that were damaging to the White House. 
 
 Democrats, meanwhile, sought to paint the Trump administration’s actions in the most negative light possible. Sen. Al Franken Alan (Al) Stuart FrankenOvernight Finance: Senators near two-year budget deal | Trump would 'love to see a shutdown' over immigration | Dow closes nearly 600 points higher after volatile day | Trade deficit at highest level since 2008 | Pawlenty leaving Wall Street group Pawlenty departing Wall Street group as campaign rumors swirl Bachmann won't run for Franken's Senate seat because she did not hear a 'call from God' MORE (D-Minn.) called Flynn “a danger to this Republic.” 
 
 Bad for Trump, but no smoking gun 
 
 While it was not a good day for the White House overall, there was no surprise “smoking gun” uncovered to inflict unexpected damage on Trump himself. 
 
 The Trump-specific controversy during the day was mostly engendered by his morning tweet encouraging people to “ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.” 
 
 Some liberals on social media accused Trump of engaging in de facto witness intimidation. Spicer, during his daily White House press briefing, parried that the tweet “speaks for itself.” 
 
 But it was McGahn, not Trump, who was the most central administration figure during the hearing. Yates said the White House counsel had not told her during their second meeting whether he had informed Trump of the issues raised in their first encounter. 
 
 One point of intrigue is whether McGahn will answer some of the questions raised by Yates’s testimony in a public forum. 
 
 Speculation about Yates running for office could get louder 
 
 The liberal reaction on social media to Yates’s testimony was exuberantly positive. 
 
 The praise was focused particularly on her clash with Cruz and on the bluntness of her words regarding the seriousness of the Flynn matter. 
 
 Yates seemed to relish even the harshest exchanges during the hearing, and she never came close to losing her poise. 
 
 There is sure to be speculation that Yates could seek, and win, political office — if she wants it. 
 
 The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trump’s presidency. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Benjy Sarlin 
 
 Several Democrats are expressing outrage after letters surfaced that they said suggested the White House tried to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before a House Intelligence Committee in its probe of connections between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. 
 
 "It sounds like an effort to try and muzzle persons who have information and the ability to shed light on this investigation," Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC on Tuesday. 
 
 White House officials deny such claims and say the administration never sought to block Yates from testifying. 
 
 White House press secretary Sean Spicer called the assertion "100 percent false" during Tuesday's press briefing. 
 
 "I hope she testifies," Spicer said adding he is "looking forward to it". 
 
 House Intelligence chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Califonia, also denied the claims and added that the committee still planned to question her at some point. 
 
 “Neither Chairman Nunes nor any Intelligence Committee staff members had any communication with the White House whatsoever about Sally Yates testifying to the Committee,” Nunes said in a statement. “The only person the Committee has spoken to about her appearing before the Committee has been her lawyer. The Committee asked her to testify on our own accord and we still intend to have her speak to us.” 
 
 Yates was fired by President Trump in January after refusing to defend the administration’s executive order barring travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. 
 
 Yates, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — all former Obama-administration appointees — were set to appear for public hearings on Tuesday on Russian interference in the 2016 election. 
 
 However, Nunes abruptly cancelled that session, over the objections of Democrats. Instead, FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers were asked to return to the Hill to testify in a closed session on that date. 
 
 Ultimately, that meeting, too, was cancelled due to a scheduling conflict and will be rescheduled. 
 
 Nunes has also scrapped the rest of the committee's meetings this week. 
 
 The House is currently investigating Russian influence on the election, but also possible ties between Russia and Trump associates, and the previous administration's use of surveillance, which President Trump asserted without evidence and against the testimony of top intelligence and justice officials had been used illegally to target Trump Tower. 
 
 Correspondences between Yates’ counsel David O’Neil, the committee’s chairman and ranking member, and the Justice Department obtained by NBC News and first published by the Washington Post show Yates requesting permission from the administration to speak at a hearing on Russian interference. 
 
 Read the letters 
 
 In a March 23 letter to Acting Assistant Attorney General Samuel Ramer, O’Neil wrote that Yates would not discuss classified information but that the guidance they received went further and was “overbroad, incorrect, and inconsistent with the department’s historical approach to the congressional testimony of current and former officials.” 
 
 Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools responded that because Yates was seeking to testify on conversations she had with the White House Office of Counsel, the material would be covered by executive privilege and referred her to the White House. 
 
 He added she “need not obtain separate consent” from the Justice Department. 
 
 In a letter to White House counsel Donald McGahn on March 24, O’Neil said any guidance barring Yates from discussing conversations about an unnamed senior White House official would be “untenable” and that the relevant topics had already been discussed publicly by top officials. 
 
 Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that the cancelled hearing would have enabled members to question Yates about the lead-up to the president’s decision to fire former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn over conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he failed to disclose to Vice President Mike Pence. He speculated that the White House may have been involved in the decision to block the meeting. 
 
 “We are aware that former AG Yates intended to speak on these matters, and sought permission to testify from the White House,” Schiff said. “Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know.” 
 
 Spicer denied that claim and called the Washington Post story “false.” 
 
 “The White House has taken no action to prevent Sally Yates from testifying and the Department of Justice specifically told her that it would not stop her and to suggest otherwise is completely irresponsible,” Spicer told NBC News. 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders noted that O’Neil’s last letter to McGahn, dated March 24, said they would conclude the administration had not asserted executive privilege over the topics in question if they heard no response by Monday, March 27 at 10 AM. 
 
 “We took NO action, therefore not blocking her,” Sanders said. 
 
 The back-and-forth is the latest sign of tension between the White House, Nunes, and Democrats, some of whom have called for Nunes to step down from the investigation after he revealed he had met with a source at the White House before telling reporters that intelligence agencies may have incidentally monitored the president and his aides’ communications. ||||| Washington (CNN) The White House on Tuesday rejected allegations that it sought to prevent former acting Attorney General Sally Yates from testifying before Congress in the House Intelligence Committee's investigation of ties between Russian agents and Trump campaign officials. 
 
 White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday the White House did not seek to block Yates' testimony and denied that the White House had pressured the House Intelligence Committee to cancel her scheduled testimony. 
 
 "I hope she testifies. I look forward to it," Spicer said during the White House briefing. "We have no problem with her testifying, plain and simple." 
 
 The statement came after The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration sought to block Yates' testimony before Congress, citing a Justice Department letter to Yates' attorney that said Yates' communications with the White House counsel "are likely covered by the presidential communications privilege." 
 
 The letter was sent on the same day that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes canceled a previously scheduled hearing where Yates was scheduled to testify about ties between Trump advisers and Russian officials. Yates briefed Trump's White House counsel on former national security adviser Michael Flynn's meeting with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 
 
 The White House Counsel's office did not weigh in on the matter of Yates' testimony, a White House official said. 
 
 "There is no letter from the White House because Yates attorney's letter clearly states a non-response will be seen as the White House not asserting executive privilege," the official said. "So our non-response clearly allows her to freely move forward with testifying." 
 
 Yates' attorney David O'Neil said in a letter Friday to White House Counsel Don McGahn that Yates would go forward with her testimony and "conclude that the White House does not assert executive privilege" if he did not receive a response by Monday. 
 
 Spicer said the White House does not believe executive privilege should be an issue in Yates testifying, which is why McGahn did not respond. 
 
 Nunes spokesperson Jack Langer told CNN that neither Nunes nor any intelligence committee staffers spoke with the White House about Yates' scheduled testimony. 
 
 "The only person the committee has spoken to about her appearing before the committee has been her lawyer. The committee asked her to testify on our own accord and we still intend to have her speak to us," Langer said. 
 
 O'Neil, Yates' attorney, declined to comment or provide the letter he sent to the White House Counsel's office when contacted by CNN Tuesday. 
 
 Yates served as acting attorney general in the early days of the Trump administration until she was fired for refusing to implement President Donald Trump's order barring travelers form seven Muslim-majority countries. 
 
 Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said he was "aware that former AG Yates intended to speak on these matters and sought permission to testify from the White House." 
 
 "Whether the White House's desire to avoid a public claim of executive privilege to keep her from providing the full truth on what happened contributed to the decision to cancel today's hearing, we do not know," Schiff said in statement Tuesday morning. "But we would urge that the open hearing be rescheduled without further delay and that Ms. Yates be permitted to testify freely and openly." 
 
 Rep. Mike Turner, a Republican on the committee, defended Nunes' decision to postpone the hearing on Tuesday, saying that Nunes needed to hear from FBI Director James Comey in a classified setting before he could hear from Yates publicly. 
 
 "That came well before any of this controversy," Turner told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront." "She will voluntarily come. We asked her to. It was the Chairman's request she be there. The White House isn't stopping her." ||||| Washington (CNN) Sally Yates didn't bring a smoking gun to the latest episode of the long-running political melodrama entwining the White House and Russia. 
 
 But in a Senate hearing on Monday, the former acting attorney general produced just enough fresh intrigue to offer Democrats a new opening in the war of attrition they are waging against Donald Trump's presidency. 
 
 In her long-awaited first public accounting of her dealings with the Trump administration, Yates testified that she explicitly warned White House counsel Donald McGahn in January that former national security adviser Michael Flynn had been compromised and could be a target for Russian blackmail. 
 
 Her intervention provoked an awkward new question that the White House will now have to answer. Why did it then take 18 days for Flynn to be fired -- a step that only took place when The Washington Post reported he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about his calls with Russia's envoy to Washington? 
 
 "The vice president was unknowingly making false statements to the public and ... we believed that General Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russians," Yates said. "We felt like the vice president and others were entitled to know that the information that they were conveying to the American people wasn't true." 
 
 RELATED: Trump made one of his own tweets into a Twitter header. Cue the Twitter shade. 
 
 
 
 The revelations did not in themselves represent a development that could break open the mystery of Moscow's meddling with last year's election and increasingly vocal Democratic claims of collusion between Russia and members of the President's inner circle. The revelations did not in themselves represent a development that could break open the mystery of Moscow's meddling with last year's election and increasingly vocal Democratic claims of collusion betweenRussia and members of the President's inner circle. 
 
 But they did cast new doubt on Trump's judgment in choosing Flynn, a controversial Washington figure, for such a crucial job in the first place -- on a day when it emerged that outgoing President Barack Obama counseled him to pick another national security adviser. 
 
 And the Yates claims were also an apt metaphor for the long and corrosive drama over Russia. Like many other allegations, hers were enough to tarnish and raise suspicions about the administration's conduct, but were not sufficient to pitch it into an existential crisis. 
 
 It may also not be easy for the administration to discredit Yates. Her calm presentation and refusal to get riled by some Republican senators trying to knock her off her game made her come across as a credible witness. 
 
 The presence of her co-witness, Washington veteran and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, also had the effect of bolstering Yates' comments. 
 
 More substantively, her testimony to a judiciary subcommittee represented the latest incremental step yet toward a broader understanding of why so many links have surfaced between Trump world and Russia. 
 
 RELATED: The many paths from Trump to Russia 
 
 
 
 Alone, her appearance didn't prove much. But collectively with the other multiple channels of investigation, it could add up to more. Still, Democrats must be frustrated that they still have not made serious claims about Russian collusion with the White House. And their repeated calls for a special counsel they have no power to task often serves to stress the futility of their minority status on Capitol Hill. Alone, her appearance didn't prove much. But collectively with the other multiple channels of investigation, it could add up to more. Still, Democrats must be frustrated that they still have not made serious claims about Russian collusion with the White House. And their repeated calls for a special counsel they have no power to task often serves to stress the futility of their minority status on Capitol Hill. 
 
 But if Trump's quick and dismissive reaction to her appearance is any guide, the Yates testimony put another dent in the administration's defenses. 
 
 "Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today -- she said nothing but old news!" Trump said in a volley of tweets, possibly designed as a head-fake away from the substance of the hearing. 
 
 He added: "The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end?" 
 
 Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today --- she said nothing but old news! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017 
 
 The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax, when will this taxpayer funded charade end? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017 
 
 Investigation could run into next year 
 
 The answer to that question may not come for a long time yet -- not at least until the FBI probe into Russian interference in last year's election and possible links to the Trump campaign wraps up. 
 
 FBI Director James Comey has given no timeline for the investigation. And there are new signs that congressional investigations into the affair may linger deep into Trump's term. 
 
 CNN's Manu Raju reported Monday that a mountain of evidence and partisan disagreement mean it could be 2018 before the job is wrapped up. And even then, hopes are fading that there can be a bipartisan conclusion on the extent of Russian election meddling. 
 
 The White House downplayed the hearing by pointing out the lack of a smoking gun -- a reality that so far has been central to the administration's claims that the Russia story is an invention of Democrats smarting at losing the election. 
 
 "Remember, the bottom line with the Russia stuff is the question of collusion during the campaign," a White House official said. 
 
 "If there is any other observation to make beyond the fact that after roughly 11 months of inquiries, no evidence of collusion has been presented, it is that there are divisions among Democrats between those willing to admit there is nothing there and those who would rather score political points," the official said. 
 
 "President Obama's former Director of National Intelligence and his former acting CIA Director have both said they have seen no evidence of collusion. Clapper repeated his assertion today." 
 
 More questions for the White House 
 
 Still, in the short term, the testimony of Yates likely means another lost day ahead for the White House as it uses up time and political energy brushing off a new round of questions and allegations about ties to Russia. 
 
 No doubt White House spokesman Sean Spicer and Trump himself would much rather be talking about the House vote to repeal Obamacare last week or the President's debut foreign trip in a couple of weeks. 
 
 But instead, Spicer, and the President if he appears on camera Tuesday, will be pressed to answer a series of questions arising out of the Yates hearing. The most pressing one is why it took 18 days for Flynn to be let go, after the White House was told he was compromised. 
 
 During that time, Flynn was the most senior national security official in the West Wing, privy to every intelligence and foreign policy decision and secret, all the while, at risk of being blackmailed by Moscow, according to Yates. 
 
 Then there is the apparent contradiction between how Yates described her efforts to raise the alarm about Flynn and the White House's description of the encounters. 
 
 The former acting attorney general said that she walked McGahn through Flynn's conduct in two meetings, on January 26 and again on January 27. 
 
 JUST WATCHED Yates, Cruz spar over Trump's travel ban Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Yates, Cruz spar over Trump's travel ban 01:31 
 
 She was understood to be referring to telephone calls between Flynn and Russian ambassador to Moscow Sergey Kislyak before Trump took office. 
 
 Strikingly, Yates warned that not only was Flynn not telling the truth about the calls, the Russians knew and could probably prove he was lying -- therefore opening him up to blackmail. 
 
 "The Russians can use compromising material in a variety of ways, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly," said Yates. 
 
 'Lying to the FBI is a crime, correct?' 
 
 Monday's hearing was also a master class by Democrats in the use of innuendo and suspicion to maximize the political damage to the administration. 
 
 Yates for example testified that she had seen a readout of an interview Flynn gave to the FBI during January, before she headed to meet McGahn. 
 
 She would not comment on the substance of the interview but her comment allowed Democratic senators to lead her on a path that raised the unspoken possibility that Flynn had not only not told the truth to Pence, but to the bureau. 
 
 Flynn has requested immunity from congressional committees in order to testify about Russia issues, but has not so far been charged or accused of a crime. 
 
 But Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut deliberately raised the question of Flynn's possible guilt in an exchange with Yates. 
 
 "Lying to the FBI is a crime, correct?" Blumenthal asked. 
 
 "It is, yes," Yates replied. 
 
 "Violation of 18 United States Code 1001?" Blumenthal continued. 
 
 "That's right," Yates said. 
 
 "And it's punishable by five years in prison?" was the next leading question. 
 
 "Yes, it is." 
 
 Blumenthal again: "So, if Michael Flynn lied to the FBI, he had a ton of legal trouble facing him? 
 
 "He could face criminal prosecution if he lied to the FBI, yes."
– Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Monday testified before a Senate subcommittee looking into the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia, and analysts say she provided some key information about the departure of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn—and raised some new questions for the White House. A roundup of coverage: The New York Times lists six takeaways from the hearing. Chief among them: A lot of people, including Barack Obama and Chris Christie as well as Yates, had reservations about Flynn becoming national security adviser. "To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians," Yates said in the hearing's most-quoted line. She said she warned that Flynn could be open to blackmail because he had lied about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. Politico lists several key moments from the hearing, including Yates' and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper's denial that they were ever anonymous sources for news reports about Trump campaign ties to Russia. Another was when Yates disclosed that she had to learn about Trump's travel ban from media reports. Another takeaway: Some Republicans, including Ted Cruz, are still focusing on Hillary Clinton's emails, with Cruz asking Clapper a hypothetical question about email forwarding that the Times calls a "thinly veiled" reference to Huma Adebin and Anthony Weiner. The Washington Post notes that the hearing didn't explain why the White House waited 18 days to fire Flynn after learning that he had lied to the administration, and it is unclear what administration officials did with the information Yates gave them before she was fired for not defending Trump's travel ban. Trump attacked the testimony in a series of tweets, which CNN considers a sign that Yates may have "put another dent in the administration's defenses." "Sally Yates made the fake media extremely unhappy today," he tweeted. "She said nothing but old news!" The Hill notes that there was no "smoking gun" from the hearing that is expected to damage Trump. His most controversial moment of the day was a tweet saying people should "ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel," which some Trump critics called witness intimidation. The Guardian reports that social media poked fun at Trump after his Twitter header banner was briefly altered to include one of his own tweets: "Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is 'no evidence' of collusion w/ Russia and Trump."