Donald Trump accused of ‘witness intimidation’

Donald Trump has been accused of trying to intimidate a witness who was set to testify at a hearing about possible Russian interference in the US election.

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was due before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, where she spoke about her warnings to the White House about former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia.

President Trump sent out a tweet on Monday directed at Ms Yates where he suggested she had leaked sensitive information to the press.

He wrote: “Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.”

Inside Politics host John King blasted Trump for the tweets, calling it “witness intimidation”.

He said: “Before I covered politics all the time, I used to cover the courts a lot.

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“A lawyer would call that witness intimidation.”

Dana Bash, CNN’s chief political correspondent, added: “I think that we have all been kind of desensitised, in some way, to his tweets and to his statements that are so out of the norm.

“This is beyond out of the norm. This is inappropriate.

“For the president of the United States to be this aggressive with somebody who used to work for him, who is coming before the United States Congress in sworn testimony hours later, is beyond the pale. It just is.”

Ms Yates was sacked by Trump after she refused to defend his travel ban.

Top pic: Rex