Fired acting Attorney General Sally Yates blasted President Trump on Monday for favoring “tyrant” Russian President Vladimir Putin over members of the U.S. intelligence community and the best interests of the nation.
“Our President today not only chose a tyrant over his own Intel community, he chose Russia’s interests over the country he is sworn to protect,” Yates wrote on Twitter. “All Americans should raise their voices. Let the world know what we stand for.”
[Related: ‘Shameful’: Senate Republicans blast Trump after he blamed US for soured Russian relationship]
Our President today not only chose a tyrant over his own Intel community, he chose Russia’s interests over the country he is sworn to protect. All Americans should raise their voices. Let the world know what we stand for.
— Sally Yates (@SallyQYates) July 16, 2018
Yates, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, has been a staunch critic of Trump since she was dismissed by the president for insubordination, for refusing to defend his administration’s travel ban.
Her comments follow bipartisan criticism of Trump over a controversial press conference he attended with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Trump denied that there was any compelling reason to conclude that the Kremlin had interfered in the 2016 election, even though the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a January 2017 assessment that Russia was behind the meddling operation.
Trump added that Mueller’s federal investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election was a “disaster” for the U.S., reiterating that he ran a “clean campaign” and there had been “no collusion” between his team and the Kremlin.
[Also read: Robert Mueller indicts 12 Russian officers for election meddling, hacking into Clinton’s emails]
