It has already been speculated that the person responsible for unmasking Donald Trump, his family and staff strongly appears to be Susan Rice. Today we pretty get conformation of that. Eli Lake in Bloomberg:
White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The pattern of Rice’s requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government’s policy on “unmasking” the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like “U.S. Person One.”
You remember Susan Rice. She was the one who went out selling the Benghazi lie created by fiction author Ben Rhodes. And she had no regrets about lying.
https://youtu.be/9ZIOxMzykQ8
It’s the same jackass Susan Rice who lectured Trump about making false statements.
The same Susan Rice who denied knowing anything about the Rump unmasking.
Rice herself has not spoken directly on the issue of unmasking. Last month when she was asked on the “PBS NewsHour” about reports that Trump transition officials, including Trump himself, were swept up in incidental intelligence collection, Rice said: “I know nothing about this,” adding, “I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today.”
She was the perfect fit for the obama administration. It seems she was the one who then spread the names of Trump, his staff and family around various agencies.
But if you look into the Lake report you might find this as interesting as I did.
The National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice’s multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel’s office, who reviewed more of Rice’s requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.
(emphasis mine)
The White House General Counsel? Why, that would be Neil Eggleston– the very same Neil Eggleston who was Bill Clinton’s lawyer in the Lewinsky scandal. Eggleston shut the door to anyone trying to find out who was unmasking Trump and his family and staff. Sounds like a cover-up to me.
And hey, remember this?
WASHINGTON — In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.
The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.
The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.
obama will no doubt learn of all this in the newspapers.
Maybe all of hillary clinton’s communications and emails can be unmasked and spread around via “incidental collection.” This is getting more interesting by the minute. Pass the popcorn- it’s time to fry some Rice!
See author page
She would never have done it unless she was winked and nodded at by her boss.
IF she’s the one.
Same for any of them.
Whoever was responsible for the “unmasking” should get a medal. Hey, if you approve of what Russian hackers, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks did to Hillary Clinton, you should really like anyone who pulls the curtain aside that’s hiding inner workings of the Trump administration. Right? You certainly liked FOX’s unnamed informants “inside the CIA,” “inside the FBI,” and “on the ground in Benghazi.”
@Greg:
Will you be willing to hand out the medal to whoever leaks hillary’s emails and communications?
Greg, it had NOTHING to do with national security. Are you putting yourself on the line supporting the unmasking of Americans and their communications for political purposes?
Let’s hear it
@Greg: I think they call what you are suggesting is treason or at least some quality time in prison. What a jerk!
@Greg:
You do understand that leaking it was a violation of the Espionage Act, right?
Q. How can you tell a liberal is lying? A. Their lips are moving
Anatomy of a fake scandal, ginned up by right-wing media and Trump
Excellent deconstruct of the right wing fantasy promulgated by this web site and the writer.
If Dr John worked in the medical field the way he works the political analysis, he would have drowned in malpractice suits.
The jackasses are DrJohn and Trump, who argued immunity is a sign of guilt except for Mr. Flynn.
A commentator at Little Green Footballs has it right:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/comment/11/11548151
Look, look Susan Rice.
Though Prince had no formal role with the Trump campaign or transition team, he presented himself as an unofficial envoy for Trump to high-ranking Emiratis involved in setting up his meeting with the Putin confidant, according to the officials, who did not identify the Russian.
@DrJohn: You may have plenty more to write about this week. Mike Cernovich, who was the first to break the Rice story, tweeted a few hours ago that this was just a warm up and that he has more to come. Shortly thereafter, he tweeted Maggie Haberman at the NY Slimes telling her he has the names of who her illegal leakers were along with proof. If true, Sessions is going to be earning his keep with all of this.
@PhillipMarlowe: Anyone can find garbage on the internet, from Obama under arrest in Japan for cocaine running to this http://rickwells.us/russian-spokeswoman-threatens-reveal-surprises-obama-cnn-attacks-continue/
You do know all the ginned up scandal is from left wing MSM sites and newpapers, for months saying they have “sources”.
The right wing just looked at all the stories and applied established law. It pointed to an illegal police state style smear campaign, and something has been found on White House server.
Every citizen deserves civil rights, privacy, due process. Best it blows up and stops now, else that same power will belong to Trump.(you dig?)
@DrJohn, #5:
Nope. I do not understand that to be the case.
If somebody thinks it is, maybe they should bring charges. They should go ahead and pull that thread. They should give it a hard yank. The more threads that get pulled, the quicker the curtain unravels, and the quicker we’ll see what all it’s been hiding. That’s the entire point of such a leak—to create a situation that forces a full investigation.
@Greg:
Did you miss Mike Rogers’ testimony about how important it was to guard the privacy of Americans?
@PhillipMarlowe:
Phillie, Phillie, Phillie.
Do you live your entire life fabricating things?
@Greg: So you would not object to Bannon asking for and leaking all of obama’s and hillary’s communications that were “incidentally” collected?
@another vet:
One realizes that as Phil increases the frequency of his spit encrusted hate posts we are getting nearer to the truth.
As I said, the information collected had nothing to do with Russia. There was no reason to unmask and no reason to disseminate.
Other than politics. The other question is- if this was all so innocent and legal, why did Rice lie about it?
@Greg:
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/03/susan-rice-ordered-spy-agencies-to-produce-detailed-spreadsheets-involving-trump/#ixzz4dHNMC8ch
FYI
@DrJohn: The Daily Caller.
That’s like quoting The Internet Stupidest Man, James Hoft.
The desperation and grasping at straws from Dr John and his kindred fellow travellers is making him more unhinged.
Medical malpractice and political incompetence.
@Greg:
Enjoy the rabbit hole. You are being duped and can’t admit it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/04/02/adam_schiff_there_is_no_definitive_proof_of_any_trump-russia_connection.html?
@PhillipMarlowe:
Oh Phil, Jim Hoft is the Gateway Pundit.
As Reagan said, it’s not that our liberals friends don’t know anything, it’s that they know so much that isn’t so.
Once you are reduced to solely ad hominem it means you have nothing. And you have nothing.
It’s highly amusing that the more the Democrats flail away at this fantasy of Russia and the associated Trump connections in their quest to delegitimatize the Trump presidency, the more the evidence comes back and points at the Democrats themselves. Rather than actually settling down to the business of governing the country for the American people, nothing but raw partisan politics seems to motivate the Left and their Democrat co-horts. There is tons of evidence that has since surfaced out there, and more surfacing daily, as this article exemplifies regards Susan Rice, yet the Left, along with the Leftist MSM continues to deny or ignore the obvious.
These people are such natural and congenital liars that they lack any moral concept of truth. Everything is a means to an end, and whatever attains their end is acceptable. Tell the truth when it is advantageous, and if not, lie like the devil to keep whatever advantage that hopefully might be had. It is a general rule that the winners in partisan politics usually is the party that is willing to sink the deepest into the slime….and, as I recall, Abraham Lincoln had a little tidbit about “Fooling the people”….
That Zero himself unilaterally changed policy, as he changed many other policies which Trump is now systematically voiding, to allow for this so-called “unmasking”, which is being used by the Democrats to categorically impugn and hinder Trump and his administration, at every turn. Had such been utilized by the Republicans in the 2008 election and beyond, the Left would be out burning down the neighborhoods and blocking the streets as usual.
An ancient and wise axiom states: “When one is digging a hole around themselves deeper and deeper, the first thing one must do to to save themselves is stop digging.” Problem is, one must first notice they are standing in a hole………..
The Democrats have been imploding since the beginning of this election cycle. They refuse to see how they could possibly have lost the past election which the media crowed was “in the bag” for them.
Trump, meanwhile, is moving right along, and while there was a bump in the road with that very awful excuse of a ‘healthcare bill’, which was rightfully pulled, but will be revised, redrafted, and resubmitted…..it is going to happen, Must happen for that Zerocare policy, like so much the Democrats have had their hands upon, is also imploding. Leave it alone, it is collapsing under its own weight….
Trump has only been in office two months…..it’s gonna be a Long 4, probably 8, years for the Left……..you lost, get over it…elections have consequences……….
Igorance and stupidity is common amonggsts liberal snowflakes
@Greg: Why should that happen? It IS being investigated…. by those whom in earlier days were called “investigative journalists” ready to let the truth take the road it chooses and fall where it may……..
putting the cards on the table prematurely simply causes those leakers on the Left to fold and scurry back to their rabbit holes before they are “unmasked”…..
however we now accustomed to hear the same tired refrain from the Left when the truth, in it’s wisdom, simply refuses to, no matter their disingenuous coercion, fall to the Left…………….
@Greg: Um….very curious what you would have been saying had the “curtain been pulled back” on the Obama administration…….
Journalistic sources are a far cry from partisan moles in national agencies leaking legitimate conversations with foreign leaders under the guise of ‘national security’……if this has to be explained to you, i will, respectfully decline…….
Benghazi was fire before it even smoked, and with people like Rice being sent on national television by the Obama administration to throw out bald-faced lies onto the populace to cover his ass, was so obvious that it brooked derision of such attempts to insult the intelligence of any rational person…….
On the other hand, the “unmasking” of individuals in the Trump administration has shown absolutely nothing towards irregularity after 8 months partisan investigation…..Flynn was unmasked, he lied for whatever reason, and Trump had absolutely no option but to fire Flynn which he rightfully did……the Obama lackeys had the gist of the conversation, if there was anything there, it would have already come to the forefront….apparently the new motto is “When there is nothing there, foment innuendo.”
Hillary??? LOL! “What’s It Matter Now?” Clinton scraped through Benghazi, then tried to do a a coverup on her e-mails, and a badly bungled one at that……anyone else, other than her, would be in lock-up at this point in time…..
Furthermore, hacking is a result of a lack of security on a site, especially on home situated servers……when confronted, Clinton feigned ignorance……..a typical fall-back option of the Left….Rice: “I knew nothing about this.”………right up there with Loretta Lynch saying that she and Bill Clinton only talked about golf and grandchildren during that meeting on the tarmac……..
Yeah, will be very interested to see what evidence you people can procure of Trumps actually stepping over the line on anything that even approaches that Zero’s………Bring it On!…..and be careful you don’t trip getting off the starting line……for you’re still stuck there….
@DrJohn, #18:
Michael Doran views the world from a neoconservative perspective. He’s not exactly an objective commentator.
I’m less concerned about how the information got out than I am about what the information suggests. Somebody decided the level of the perceived threat warranted a breach of normal protocol. We can decide whether they deserve commendation or condemnation after the threat has been fully examined and evaluated.
If someone breaks the rules by turning on the lights, suddenly revealing the possibility of a serious crime in progress, it makes no sense to ignore what you’re seeing and turn all attention to the matter of who flipped on the switch.
@Greg: OK, I’ll bite……..Exactly What does the information suggest??
WHO was that “somebody” and and upon what basis was the listening-in warranted?
When law enforcement goes to a judge requesting a warrant, they must produce compelling evidence that the warrant is needed. I’m certain you would not want the police to come knocking on your door at 2 in the morning based upon the ‘possibility’ that you may be up to something illegal………
I submit to you that First: the Democrats had to permeate the claim that Russia hacked the election and is responsible for Hillary Clinton losing that election……..Second, based upon the First, any contact by the Trump administration with Russia is then construed a matter of national security, is ‘illegal’ contact, thus substantiates the subsequent “unmasking”…….
The Leftists version of “Brave New World”……….
@Greg:
I am happy to see your concrete evidence at any time. I stand by my assertion that if something was there it would already have been leaked.
There’s another layer to this onion:
http://comicallyincorrect.com/2017/04/04/unmasked/
@DrJohn, #28:
An investigation is how evidence is collected. This is done when there’s sufficient preliminary information to create reasonable suspicion. Trump supporters seem to believe all evidence should be presented first, otherwise there’s no justification for looking closely. That’s quite a different approach than the one republicans took with regard to their theories about Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. They investigated endlessly and repeatedly, refusing to accept the conclusions of their own committees.
There are numerous suspicious dots suggesting improper and purposeful connections between Russian operatives and members of the Trump team. There are strong indications that efforts have been made to conceal such connections. That suggests some very serious possibilities, which could directly affect national security and governmental integrity.
Ignoring this is not an acceptable option. It’s not a patriotic choice.
Flynn lied to Congress. He lied to his own higher-ups in the Trump administration. Rice knew. If she decided to let that particular cat out of the bag, should she not have done so? Should she have allowed Flynn to remain unsuspected? Should she have reported it only to those most likely to cover it up?
@Greg:
Hehehehehe…
Except when it involves Hillary’s illegal server (which she destroyed), FOIA requests over Benghazi state dept emails, Lois Lehrner’s harassment of conservative groups from her IRS post, Slick Willie holding up air traffic at Sky Harbor to (laughably) talk about grandchildren with the second of Obama’s completely unethical AG hacks, or Eric Holder’s perjury.
Yeah…you leftists are completely dishonest hacks at all..
@Greg: Lets take this response regards your post from the end to the beginning: Your defense of Rice is understandable, but allow me to put forth a couple or assertions: Rices interest was assuredly Not in national security, but to advance the political interests of the Democratic party. The thing to bear in mind is that the White House does Not do investigations. Not criminal investigations, Not intelligence investigations. Remember that.
In general, it is the FBI that conducts investigations that bear on American citizens suspected of committing crimes or of acting as agents of foreign powers.
In the matter of alleged Russian meddling, the investigative camp also includes the CIA and the NSA.
Any “unmasking” that was Deemed Necessary for national security purposes would have been done by one of these agencies.
As you so helpfully noted, “Investigations are how evidence is collected”. The national-security adviser is not an investigator. She is a White House staffer. The president’s staff is a consumer of intelligence, not a generator or collector of it. If Susan Rice was unmasking Americans, it was not to fulfill an intelligence need based on American interests; it was to fulfill a political desire based on Democratic-party interests.
Comey made a direct reference in his testimony that:these consumers “can ask the collectors to unmask.” But the unmasking authority “resides with those who collected the information.”
Nice try, however inadequate…..there is NO evidence that directly bears upon national security……they only thing these leaks and unmaskings bear upon is, to repeat, further the interests of the Democratic Party……which is, as Elvelyn Farkas noted in her famous interview with MSNBC: “That’s why you have all the leaking.”
Lets also keep in mind that a FACT is that the Zero did request back in December that the intelligence community compile all of the information that it had.”
Not only that, the Zero administration ordered that it be shared with 16 additional intelligence agencies to make sure somebody would leak it. They were leaving nothing to chance.
Again, if you have the least shred of evidence that Rice was acting out of national interest, you are welcome to produce it….
Reference:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/446415/susan-rice-unmasking-trump-campaign-members-obama-administration-fbi-cia-nsa000000
@DrJohn: Funny comment from the guy ranting a couple months ago about crowd size , then a week ago expressing the desire to see a teen age girl raped.
@Greg:
Yeah…notice the BLATANT and utterly hypocitical difference from the left?
1. Holder lies – under oath – about illegal gun running by the Obama admin to Mexico that resulted in the murder of a US Border agent….dems don’t care. He keeps his job with no penalty.
2. Rice lies REPEATEDLY to the American people about Benghazi being “a spontaneous protest caused by an anti-islamic video”, but she keeps her job, even when evidence is found PROVING she lied for political reasons, for the sole purpose of influencing the 2012 election in favor of Obama.
3. Hillary lies REPEATEDLY about her illegal server, about the obvious graft/bribery that is the only reason for the existence of the Clinton Foundation, and about Benghazi – but the left makes excuse after excuse to cover for her. She is a contemptibly dishonest lying piece of garbage, but was loyal to the Obama admin so was allowed to keep her job.
4. Obama lied REPEATEDLY that obamacare was not a tax, would allow people to keep their plans and doctors, and would bend the cost curve down an average of $2500 per family of 4 – then defended obamacare before SCOTUS as a TAX, caused massive medical insurance cost increases, and the loss of millions of American’s insurance policies.
5. Susan Rice is caught in yet ANOTHER lie, claiming she knew nothing about the unmasking of the names of Americans “incidentally” surveilled by US intelligence, despite multiple witnesses coming forward stating Rice ordered “detaed spreadsheets” be put together on Trump support personnel.
But to despicable leftists NONE of the above matters. Anyone who continues to believe ANY leftist excuse is either a traitor in collusion with the anti-American left, or a complete and utter moron.
@another vet: Mike Cernovich, the pizzagate psychopath.
He came this close to provoking the deaths several people.
There’s a stand up guy.
A model of the nutty rightwingers and alt-right crowd.
@Pete: Sorry, Pete. She did not lie, certainly not to the extent of Trump.
Where’s his tax plan?
Healthcare plan?
Defeat of ISIS plan?
He had them in his back pocket.
But you forgot that.
Trump bets on the stupidity and incredulity of his minions.
@Greg: again whose side are you on? Definitely not that of the American citizen.