Just hours before she was scheduled to testify at a Senate hearing, President Trump decided to take to Twitter and criticize former acting attorney general Sally Yates. The President’s choice to attack Yates before her testimony is receiving wide criticism, especially from CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin.
On Monday morning, Trump tweeted that someone should “ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Council.” The tweet has since been deleted.
In an appearance in CNN this Monday, Toobin said that Trump’s tweet crosses a huge line.
“It just shows how much the norms of behavior have changed,” Toobin said. “The idea of the President of the United States essentially threatening a witness, he’s basically accusing her of leaking, we have never had that before. We’ve never had presidents who did this kind of thing. The idea that the president — the guy who’s in charge of the Justice Department — is threatening a witness is really kind of disturbing.”
Yates was fired from her role as acting attorney general after she refused to enforce Trump’s travel ban targeting Muslim majority countries. According to reports, her testimony this Monday will focus in the warnings she gave the Trump administration about Flynn’s alleged contacts with the Russian government.
Watch the segment in the video below:
Featured image via YouTube
