Sally Yates  testimony before a congressional committee on the events leading up to Trump s disgraced former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn  resigning  and her own firing for speaking out against him had always promised to contain some explosive revelations. And it didn t take long for the match to be lit.Early into Yates  appearance in front of the committee, she got down to brass tacks. She had told Trump three separate times that Michael Flynn was trouble. In every case she was ignored, save for White House counsel demanding to know whether Flynn was facing a criminal charge. What s more, Yates testified that she has specifically told the Trump administration that there was a great deal of evidence to suggest Flynn was either susceptible to blackmail from the Russians or already compromised. Again, she was ignored and then later fired.Particularly damning, Yates said that she watched in horror as Flynn s own lies about his involvement with the Russians was being passed along to the media by others within the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence. (Pence later confirmed this by claiming he had believed what Flynn was telling him at the time.) She noted that this created a situation where the national security adviser was digging an increasingly deep hole for himself with lies and implicating everyone around him as well. She added that this was not lost on the Russians, who   given their relationship with Flynn   were holding cold, hard proof of Flynn s lies and could threaten to release it at any time.Yates:  the National Security Adviser, essentially, could be blackmailed by the Russians.   via @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/DTIAQcZ6y0  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 8, 2017It s a classic blackmail set up: Let the mark get in too deep, make sure the risk of exposure is too big a cost to bear, then use that vulnerability against him or her.Unfortunately, Trump s administration chose to stick by Flynn rather than slip out of the noose that was rapidly tightening around their necks. Making matters worse, by repeating Flynn s lies, they were also exposing themselves to blackmail. A White House run by a person famous for never apologizing to anyone in his life was walking headlong into a massive scandal   what would they do to avoid responsibility for it?As Yates put it:  You don t want the national security adviser to be in a position where the Russians have leverage over him At some point, the debate over what exactly Trump knew and when he knew it becomes moot. Even if Trump were completely blameless in the coordinated relationship between his trusted adviser and the country undermining American democracy, it would only reinforce that his stupidity qualified as criminal negligence. Obama warned him. Yates warned him. The FBI warned him. The media warned him. And he ignored all of them to protect his friend   a man now claiming to be a foreign agent.Featured image via Twitter