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.” 
 
 Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. 
 
 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. ||||| 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 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. ||||| “To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians,” Ms. Yates told the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. 
 
 But what was obvious to Ms. Yates appears to have been less so to Mr. Trump. 
 
 Even after being warned that Mr. Flynn represented a blackmail risk, Mr. Trump kept the general on as national security adviser for another two weeks, firing him only after The Washington Post found out about the warnings. 
 
 Photo 
 
 2. Leaks trump all else. 
 
 In a Twitter message posted hours before Monday’s hearing, Mr. Trump suggested that Ms. Yates had tipped off journalists about Mr. Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador. 
 
 The president presented the accusation against Ms. Yates without evidence, but such details have rarely stopped him. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has made it clear that he believes the leaks of classified information are far more significant than the actual connections between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. 
 
 Ms. Yates said Monday that she had never leaked classified information, and was not the source of any reports about Mr. Flynn. 
 
 She also pointed out that there were three other people in the room for the conversation, including Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel. 
 
 3. The F.B.I. keeps secrets — from everyone. 
 
 Among the most secretive investigations conducted by the F.B.I. are those that examine the links between American citizens and foreign governments, which are known as counterintelligence investigations. So when the F.B.I. began examining possible connections between Trump associates and Russia this past summer, it appeared to have told almost no one — not even Mr. Clapper, who was then overseeing the bureau as the director of national intelligence. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Mr. Clapper testified Monday that he was unaware of the investigation into the Trump campaign until James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, acknowledged it when testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on March 20. 
 
 For Mr. Clapper, the issue is also one of personal integrity. In early March, after Mr. Trump accused Mr. Obama of wiretapping him during the campaign — a universally rejected accusation for which there is no evidence — Mr. Clapper went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and made a sweeping denial. 
 
 “There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,” Mr. Clapper said. 
 
 Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Get the Morning Briefing by Email What you need to know to start your day, delivered to your inbox Monday through Friday. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. 
 
 Journalists have since revealed a wrinkle in that story. The F.B.I. obtained a court-approved wiretap on Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign, based on evidence that he was operating as a Russian agent. 
 
 In his testimony on Monday, Mr. Clapper said his ignorance of the F.B.I. investigation before Mr. Comey’s “comports with my public statements.” 
 
 Video 
 
 4. Letting go (of Clinton’s emails) is hard. 
 
 Few would disagree that Mr. Flynn’s falsehoods or Russia’s meddling are important. But for some Republicans, the alpha and omega of any congressional hearing is Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state. 
 
 In the midst of all of the talk of Russia and Ms. Yates’s warnings about Mr. Flynn, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a former Republican presidential candidate, steered the hearing toward the email issue. He asked Mr. Clapper what he would do if, hypothetically, his employee forwarded emails containing classified information. 
 
 The question was a thinly veiled reference to Huma Abedin, an aide to Mrs. Clinton, forwarding emails containing classified information to her husband, Anthony D. Weiner, a former New York representative. Mr. Comey said Ms. Abedin forwarded the messages for Mr. Weiner to print for her to give to Mrs. Clinton. 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Several current and former government officials familiar with the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of delicate information said that while some emails had been forwarded, a vast majority were instead backed up to Mr. Weiner’s computer. 
 
 Mr. Clapper did his best to keep on his game face — and to stick to the hypotheticals. 
 
 “It raises all kinds of potential security concerns, again depending on the content of the email, what the intent was, a whole bunch of variables here would have to be considered,” Mr. Clapper said. “But given a hypothetical scenario, I’d be quite concerned.” 
 
 5. You can learn a lot from the news media. 
 
 Ms. Yates’s brief tenure as acting attorney general came to an abrupt end on the evening of Jan. 30 when she refused to defend Mr. Trump’s executive order barring refugees and travel from several predominantly Muslim countries. 
 
 On Monday, Ms. Yates said the order came as a surprise to her. “Not only was the department not consulted, we weren’t even told about it,” she said. “I learned about this from media reports.” 
 
 She then defended the decision that got her fired, explaining that she could not defend the order largely because Mr. Trump himself had indicated that it was intended to single out Muslims. Federal judges have since made similar findings as the case winds through the courts. 
 
 Republican senators, though, pressed her to admit that she objected to the executive order as a policy. But she refused. 
 
 “I don’t believe there are reasonable arguments that are grounded in truth” that would defend the travel ban, she said. 
 
 6. Still, those reporters are pesky. 
 
 There was a lot of talk about leaks of classified information — some of it comical. 
 
 Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, asked Mr. Clapper if he had ever leaked “information, classified or unclassified, to the press?” 
 
 Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 Mr. Clapper said that he had not done so knowingly, and then added: “Well, unclassified is not leaking. That’s sort of a non sequitur.” 
 
 So Mr. Kennedy clarified, asking Mr. Clapper if he had ever given “information to a reporter that you didn’t want to have your name connected with.” 
 
 Mr. Clapper said that he had not, and that he had “had many encounters with the media over my career.” 
 
 “I’m sorry about that,” the senator said to laughs. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 May 8, 2017, 3:10 PM GMT / Updated May 8, 2017, 3:33 PM GMT By Kristen Welker, Dafna Linzer and Ken Dilanian 
 
 Former President Obama warned President Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News. 
 
 The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office. 
 
 A senior Trump administration official acknowledged Monday that Obama raised the issue of Flynn, saying the former president made clear he was "not a fan of Michael Flynn." Another official said Obama’s remark seemed like it was made in jest. 
 
 According to all three former officials, Obama warned Trump against hiring Flynn. The Obama administration fired Flynn in 2014 from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, largely because of mismanagement and temperament issues. 
 
 NBC News Alerts:Sign up to be the first to know about breaking news 
 
 Obama’s warning pre-dated the concerns inside the government about Flynn’s contacts with the Russian ambassador, one of the officials said. Obama passed along a general caution that he believed Flynn was not suitable for such a high level post, the official added. 
 
 Two administration officials said Obama also warned Trump to stay vigilant on North Korea. 
 
 The revelations came on the same day that former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified about the events that led to Flynn's eventual firing. Separately, two U.S. officials told NBC News that the Defense Intelligence Agency didn't know Flynn had been paid nearly $34,000 by a Russian state media outlet when it renewed his security clearance in April 2016. 
 
 Trump named Flynn as his national security adviser. Flynn, who was conducting private conversations with the Russian ambassador regarding sanctions, was then fired three weeks into the administration for misleading Vice President Pence about those conversations. 
 
 Obama and Trump shake hands following their meeting in the Oval Office on Nov. 10, 2016. Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP 
 
 News of the Obama warning came as Trump sought to get ahead of a day of unpleasant disclosures about his former top foreign policy aide, taking to Twitter Monday to cast aspersions on Yates, the 27-year Justice Department prosecutor who warned the White House that then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had misled officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador. 
 
 Related: White House Denies Claim That Yates' Testimony Was Blocked 
 
 "Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel," Trump tweeted, referring to Yates’ conversation with White House counsel Donald McGahn. 
 
 But Trump has left many other important questions about the Flynn affair unanswered, including: What, if anything, did he know about his national security adviser’s conversations with the Russian ambassador? 
 
 Monday afternoon, Yates is scheduled to testify for the first time in public, alongside James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, who pushed Flynn in 2014 from his job as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. The two are due to appear before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee at 2:30 p.m. 
 
 It was more than a week after Yates raised concerns about Flynn with McGahn that the story leaked to the Washington Post, prompting a series of events that led to Flynn’s ouster from his White House job. 
 
 In a second tweet Monday morning, Trump noted that "General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama administration, but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that." 
 
 It’s true that Flynn got his top level security clearance renewed in January 2016, but what Trump didn’t mention is that Flynn should have received a far more thorough vetting in advance of his becoming national security adviser, a job that allows access to the nation’s most closely-held secrets. What was the nature of that vetting, and did it raise any flags about Flynn’s lobbying work for Turkish interests during the campaign, or his paid appearance on behalf of Russian state media, both now under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies? The White House hasn’t said. 
 
 Related: Flynn Never Told DIA That Russians Paid Him, Say Officials 
 
 Another big question that has never been answered: Did Flynn coordinate with the president over his repeated contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak? Those contacts raised alarms not only within the Obama administration, but within Trump’s own transition team, according to reports Friday confirmed by NBC News. There were concerns that the Trump administration was signaling Russia not to worry about the Obama administration sanctions on Russia over its election interference, which expelled Russian intelligence officers from the U.S. and blocked access to Russian diplomatic compounds here. 
 
 Flynn was fired as national security adviser, White House officials said, because he told Vice President Pence he didn’t discuss those sanctions with Kislyak, despite FBI transcripts showing that he did. That is among the issues Yates raised to McGahn, according to people who have been briefed on the matter. 
 
 People familiar with her plans don’t expect her to get into much detail about her warnings regarding Flynn, largely because many of the underlying facts involve classified material. 
 
 In advance of her testimony, Republicans have been accusing her of acting politically, and noting that she was fired by Trump for refusing to enforce his travel ban. They call her a partisan Democrat. 
 
 Related: Former Acting AG Sally Yates to Testify Publicly in House Intel Probe 
 
 In response, her defenders point out that she spent much of her 27-year Justice Department career working as a line prosecutor, a non-political job. Though she was appointed to positions in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, she was widely respected on both sides of the aisle. Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson, her home state senator, was among those introducing her at her 2015 confirmation hearing to become deputy attorney general. 
 
 She was confirmed, 84-12.
– 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."