Yates: Flynn’s Name Wasn’t Masked in Intel Reports on Russian Ambassador Calls

In a new interview with The New Yorker, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates said now-dismissed National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s name appeared in unredacted form in U.S. intelligence reports on his now-infamous December phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. After The Washington Post reported in February that Flynn and Kislyak had a phone conversation regarding sanctions the Obama administration imposed on Russia in December, several prominent Republicans and Trump administration officials claimed that because Flynn is a U.S. citizen, mentions of his name would have been “masked” or concealed in intelligence reports on the conversation and demanded to know who “unmasked” Flynn’s name and leaked the information about his call with Kislyak. In the interview, however, Yates said Flynn’s name was never “unmasked” and added that there are two common instances in which Americans’ names are included in the reports: “because [the] intelligence only made sense if you knew who the identity of the U.S. person was, and that’s an exception to the minimization requirements,” she said, or, “If it’s evidence of a crime.”