‘Somebody Blew a Hole in the Wall Between National Security Secrets and Partisan Politics’

The Democrat/liberal mainstream media narrative about “Russiagate” is unraveling faster than a cheap sweater.

On the heels of former White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice being identified as the culprit in “unmasking” Trump campaign staffers during the 2016 presidential cycle, we’ve now learned some startling new developments in the story. Not only did the surveillance happen before Trump was the Republican nominee, it happened before the first nominating contest—the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses—took place, and it wasn’t just a small number of Trump staffers who were illegally identified; it was all of them.

In an interview with The Daily Caller, former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova, citing his sources within the intelligence community—and later independently verified by other sources—said Rice ordered the U.S. spy agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving then-candidate Donald Trump and his aides:

What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals. The overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by anybody of the Trump associates, or anyone they were speaking with. In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls …

We’re looking at a potential constitutional crisis from the standpoint that we used an extremely strong capability that’s supposed to be used to safeguard and protect the country. And we used it for political purposes by a sitting president. That takes on a new precedent.

In the same report, Air Force Col. James Waurishuk (ret.), a former senior intelligence officer with connections to the National Security Council, said the National Security Agency is initially responsible for the surveillance that captured the Trump campaign conversations, but that “many hands” had to have been involved. He called it a “political spying operation”:

The surveillance initially is the responsibility of the National Security Agency. They have to abide by this guidance when one of the other agencies says, “we’re looking at this particular person which we would like to unmask.”

The lawyers and counsel at the NSA surely would be talking to the lawyers and members of counsel at CIA, or at the National Security Council or at the Director of National Intelligence or at the FBI. It’s unbelievable of the level and degree of the administration to look for information on Donald Trump and his associates, his campaign team and his transition team. This is really, really serious stuff.

Former National Security Council Senior Director Michael Doran noted that “somebody blew a hole in the wall between national security secrets and partisan politics,” by revealing information that was meant to be “hermetically sealed from politics.” He noted it is felony to illegally unmask a U.S. citizen, calling it a “tremendous abuse of the system,” and a breach of the public trust.

Click here to read the full report from The DC.

But the story doesn’t end there. In a separate interview, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, while not confirming that Trump staffers’ names were unmasked, said that if that happened, Rice would be the person most likely to do so:

[I]f anyone had the opportunity to unmask, it would be the national security adviser, because that person is giving advice to the president on issues around national security.

Click here to read that report.

Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a frequent critic of the NSA and its surveillance programs, demanded during Monday press gaggle that Rice testify before Congress about her role in the unmasking. And, even if there is a legal justification for the surveillance and unmasking, he said there is a need for reforms:

If it is allowed, we shouldn’t be allowing it, but I don’t think we should just discount how big a deal it is that Susan Rice was looking at these. And 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.

But, there are still some “bitter clingers” in the liberal media trying to find some way to spin this story into a positive for Democrats and a negative for the Trump administration. Former Obama administration official Jim Sciutto, who now works for CNN as the network’s chief national security correspondent, called the Rice developments a “ginned-up distraction” to divert attention away from what he says is the real investigation of Russiagate.

Appearing on Anderson Cooper 360, he said, “the idea that Ambassador Rice improperly sought the identities of Americans is false.” Keep in mind, this is the same Ambassador Rice who lied to the American public about Benghazi. Not once. Not twice. But three times.

And after the truth came out, she expressed no remorse. {eoa}