Obama adviser denies spying on Trump’s people

WASHINGTON — Susan Rice, Barack Obama’s national security adviser and the latest target for Donald Trump’s embattled defenders, firmly denied on Tuesday that she or other Obama officials used secret intelligence reports to spy on Trump associates for political purposes. “Absolutely false,” Rice declared. The White House has seized on the idea that the Obama administration improperly surveilled the Republican during and after the November election — an accusation Democrats say is just another red herring thrown out to distract attention from investigations of Russian interference.

Presidential spokesman Sean Spicer cast Rice’s handling of intelligence in the waning days of Obama’s term as suspicious, although refused to provide details.

“The more we find out about this, the more we learn there was something there,” he said.

According to a U.S. official, Rice asked spy agencies to give her the names of Trump associates who surfaced in intelligence reports she was briefed on. Rice’s role would have given her the ability to make those requests for national security purposes.

Rice, in an interview with MSNBC, acknowledged she sometimes asked for the names of Americans referenced in reports. She would not say whether she saw intelligence related to Trump associates or whether she asked for their identities, though she did say that reports related to Russia increased in the final months of the presidential election.

The Trump White House has been particularly incensed that intercepted conversations between short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. surfaced before the inauguration.

Rice denied leaking details about Flynn’s call, saying, “I leaked nothing to nobody.”