Former national security adviser Michael Flynn was in a "serious compromise situation, that the Russians had real leverage," former acting Attorney General Sally Yates told CNN's Anderson Cooper.
In an exclusive interview that will air Tuesday, Yates said Flynn lied about conversations he had with Russian officials prior to President Donald Trump's inauguration and there was "certainly a criminal statute that was implicated by his conduct."
The interview is Yates' first since Trump fired her in January.
Yates testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism earlier this month about Trump's alleged connections to Russia and Flynn's contact with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S.
Trump fired Flynn in February, 18 days after Yates told the president about his conversations with Kislyak. She told CNN she was surprised Trump did not act more quickly on the situation and denied she was behind the leaks to the press about the issue.
"Absolutely not. I did not and I would not leak classified information," she said.
While "concerned" the information she supplied the president was not acted upon more quickly, Yates admitted there might have been "something else . . . that maybe I just wasn't aware of."
Flynn was a retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was named Trump's national security adviser. In financial documents he submitted after being fired, it was also revealed he accepted money from Russian media outlet RT, two Russian firms and lobbied on behalf of the Turkish government.
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