O AIDE UNMASKED AS ID SEEKER
Wanted Trump intel names Key piece in Nunes puzzle
Former President Barack Obama’s national security adviser tried on dozens of occasions to learn the identities of Trump transition officials whose conversations with foreign officials were “incidentally” collected by US intelligence, it was reported Monday.
The names Susan Rice asked to “unmask” were found in raw intelligence documents with summaries of monitored conversations between Trump associates and foreign officials discussing the then-president-elect’s transition, Bloomberg News reported.
Normally, the names of American citizens collected in such a manner are redacted.
But after being “unmasked,” the identities of the Trump officials became known.
Top government officials can ask for the hidden names to be released if they are of “foreign intelligence value,” Bloomberg News reported.
Rice’s requests to identify Trump transition staffers were uncovered in February during a National Security Council review and were reported to the White House General Counsel’s Office.
The revelation adds insight to the actions of Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who met with sources on the White House grounds to view documents related to surveillance of Team Trump.
The Bloomberg report said it appears Nunes viewed NSC logs of Rice’s requests to unmask the names.
The next day, March 22, Nunes held a news conference to announce he had received information that showed members of the Trump transition team were caught up in “incidental collection” after the election.
The data included sensitive information about who the president’s associates were meeting, their views on foreign-policy issues and further transition plans.
Nunes told reporters last month he briefed Trump on the documents because of concerns that Americans who were caught on routine surveillance were being “unmasked” for no reason.
The Obama administration reportedly shared the intelligence with officials throughout government because it feared the information would be covered up by the Trump White House.
Once the information was widely distributed, “intelligence officials” began leaking it and some of it appeared in media reports, including conversations fired National Security Adviser Mike Flynn had with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Rice did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment, Bloomberg News said.
But during an appearance on “PBS NewsHour” on March 22, she was asked about whether Trump transition officials were swept up in incidental eavesdropping.
“I know nothing about this,” she said at the time.
On Monday, Rice retweeted former Hillary Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri, who wrote: “Here’s what’s happening. Trump NSC staff cherry picks intel which appears to back up Trump and leaks it to Fox so Trump can tweet it.”
White House spokesman Sean Spicer, at his press briefing Monday, declined to go into details of Rice’s actions.
“I will say . . . there’s a troubling direction some of this is going in, but we’re going to let this review go on,” he said.
“I am not going to comment on this any further until [congressional] committees have come to a conclusion.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Monday that Rice should testify before Congress about her request to unmask the names from the reports.
“She needs to be asked, ‘Did President Obama ask her to do this? Was this a directive from President Obama? I think she should testify under oath on this,” Paul said.
Besides Nunes’ House committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee is also looking into Russia’s involvement in the US election and whether Trump associates had any contact with the Kremlin during that time.
The FBI, too, is investigating Russia’s interference in the presidential election.
Trump set off the controversy on March 4 when he claimed in a tweet that Obama “had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower,” but did not offer proof.
Rice has stirred controversy before. As the US ambassador to the United Nations, she appeared on Sunday news shows to defend the Obama administration’s claim that the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, were triggered by an antiMuslim Internet video. That claim was later widely debunked.