Hearing set on Trump aides’ contacts with Russia

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration Justice Department official will testify to Congress on Monday about the most explosive contacts to emerge so far between President Trump’s former top aides and senior Russian officials.

Sally Yates, deputy attorney general under President Barack Obama, is expected to disclose details to a Senate Judiciary Committee panel about her warnings to White House officials in January that Trump’s national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had misled Vice President Mike Pence and other officials about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Flynn was fired 18 days after Yates went to the White House, and only after news stories revealed the existence of a transcript of Flynn’s telephone conversation with Kislyak, which was recorded as part of routine U.S. intelligence monitoring of foreign officials’ communications.

Flynn and Kislyak exchanged phone calls and text messages during the White House transition, and were in touch on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration levied a range of sanctions against Moscow for meddling in the 2016 election.

Nunes later recused himself from the panel’s Russia inquiry after the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating whether he had wrongly disclosed classified information as he claimed that U.S. surveillance under Obama had deliberately targeted Trump’s aides.