House Intelligence committee chair-guy Devin Nunes said that there were hundreds of “unmaskings” done under Obama, and he says some of them were very suspicious.
From Fox News:
An Obama official made “hundreds of unmasking requests” during the final year of the previous administration, according to a letter from a top Republican who raised new concerns that officials sought the identities of Trump associates in intelligence reports for “improper purposes.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has questioned whether Obama officials improperly sought the names of Trump transition members in this way – and, in the letter obtained by Fox News, Nunes provided new details about what his investigators have found.
“[T]his Committee has learned that one official, whose position has no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration,” he wrote to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
Only one request, Nunes wrote, “offered a justification that was not boilerplate and articulated why” the identity was needed for official duties.
Three of the nation’s intelligence agencies received subpoenas in May explicitly naming three top Obama administration officials: Former CIA director John Brennan, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power.
Susan Rice has already said that although she did “unmask” some people, it was in the regular course of her job. But others say that she would not have a reason to do so as national security advisor, leading them to concluded that she did it for political reasons. And if that’s true, then she’s going to jail…
Also I think this confirms a report by Circa news that the frequency of unmasking was ramped up significantly in the last year of Obama’s reign – another sign that it might have been done for political reasons…
UPDATE!
Here are some more interesting details – the inquiry goes beyond Rice and to Samantha Power, who will be testifying before Congress.
Fox News reported Thursday evening that Mr. Nunes, in a July 27 letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats discussing the status of the unmasking investigation, apparently referred to Ms. Power when he wrote of “one official whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, [who] made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration.” There was no “meaningful explanation” of why the unmasking requests were needed and how the information would be used, Mr. Nunes added.
While senior intelligence officials have argued that Ms. Rice’s security-related job duties could have justified the practice, the standard for Ms. Power making such requests is much higher. Unmasking requests in her case should have been extraordinary and directly related to her United Nations’ workflow.
Remember Power is married to Cass Sunstein the notorious leftist academician…