XPost: alt.politics.radical-left, alt.politics.trump, alt.education   
   XPost: can.politics   
   From: apes@splcenter.org   
      
   The Obama administration’s national security adviser played a   
   central role in “unmasking” several Trump campaign officials who   
   had been swept up in U.S. surveillance operations against   
   foreign targets during last year’s presidential election   
   campaign, according to current White House officials and sources   
   on Capitol Hill.   
      
   Susan E. Rice requested that names be provided for otherwise   
   unidentified U.S. people in dozens of raw intelligence reports   
   relating to the Trump campaign, the sources told The Washington   
   Times on Monday.   
      
   While Ms. Rice’s actions and alleged interest in the Trump   
   campaign appear to have been within her legal authority as   
   national security adviser, the potentially explosive revelation   
   has touched a nerve in Washington and stirred speculation that   
   she could be called to testify on Capitol Hill about Russian   
   election meddling.   
      
   “Smoking gun found! Obama pal and noted dissembler Susan Rice   
   said to have been spying on Trump campaign,” Sen. Rand Paul,   
   Kentucky Republican, wrote Monday on his Twitter feed.   
      
   As of Monday night, Ms. Rice had made no public comment on the   
   situation, first reported by Bloomberg View and confirmed by the   
   sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity with The Times.   
      
   According to regulations governing international and domestic   
   surveillance of foreign targets, the names of Americans   
   incidentally collected are required to be blacked out, or   
   “masked,” when the information is later compiled in a report for   
   privacy purposes.   
      
   Issues of national security or criminality can, however,   
   override the right to privacy.   
      
   Late last month on the PBS “NewsHour,” Ms. Rice was asked   
   whether any Trump transition officials were the targets of   
   incidental surveillance. She replied, “I know nothing about   
   this.”   
      
   The claims about Ms. Rice come nearly five years after she was   
   sharply criticized in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist   
   attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and   
   three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya.   
      
   Ms. Rice, who was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the   
   time, appeared on several Sunday news talk shows during the days   
   after the attack to spread the later-debunked claim that it had   
   been carried out not by hardened terrorists, but by a   
   spontaneous mob angry about an anti-Islam video on the internet.   
      
   The sources who spoke with The Times on Monday said a Trump   
   administration National Security Council staffer, Ezra Cohen-   
   Watnick, conducted a review in February and discovered multiple   
   requests by Ms. Rice to unmask American citizens in raw   
   intelligence reporting on Trump transition activities.   
      
   Mr. Cohen-Watnick brought his notice of Ms. Rice’s interest to   
   the White House general counsel’s office.   
      
   “Ezra’s goal was to provide a policy memo on the process by   
   which Obama administration officials had handled ‘unmasking’ in   
   general,” said one of the sources who spoke with The Times. “But   
   in the course of going through the information, he stumbled   
   across this Susan Rice stuff.”   
      
   The 30-year-old Mr. Cohen-Watnick once worked at the Defense   
   Intelligence Agency for former Trump National Security Adviser   
   Michael Flynn, who resigned in February after just four weeks on   
   the job following reports that he misled Vice President Mike   
   Pence and other officials about his dealings with Russia during   
   the transition.   
      
   Mr. Cohen-Watnick is also close to Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and   
   adviser, Jared Kushner, and chief presidential strategist   
   Stephen Bannon, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.   
      
   Obama eased intel sharing   
   In a separate and potentially related twist, which occurred   
   before Mr. Trump’s people took over the National Security   
   Council, the Obama administration moved to significantly relax   
   restrictions on the sharing of National Security Agency   
   surveillance intelligence to the nation’s 16 other spy agencies.   
   Debate in national security circles is so far inconclusive on   
   the extent to which the move during the final weeks of the Obama   
   presidency may have impacted the overall Russian probe and   
   allowed Obama loyalists to leak information for political   
   reasons.   
      
   Sources who spoke with The Times said the information Mr. Cohen-   
   Watnick unearthed about Ms. Rice is the same as that at the   
   center of a media and political firestorm surrounding Rep. Devin   
   Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent   
   Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Nunes’ office would not   
   comment on the revelations about Ms. Rice.   
      
   Last month, Mr. Nunes visited the White House and then held a   
   press conference outside on the lawn to announce that he had   
   just viewed raw intelligence reports showing Mr. Trump and his   
   associates had been swept up in U.S. surveillance of foreign   
   targets and unmasked.   
      
   Mr. Nunes served on the Trump transition team, and his   
   announcement caused his Democratic counterparts and some leading   
   Republicans to cry foul and question his impartiality. Several,   
   including the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Adam B. Schiff,   
   California Democrat, called for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself from   
   the House panel’s investigation into Russian election meddling.   
      
   This weekend, Mr. Schiff tweeted that he had finally seen the   
   surveillance material in question and believes it “should have   
   been shared with the full committee in the first place as part   
   of our ordinary oversight responsibilities.”   
      
   The White House did not weigh in on the claims about Ms. Rice on   
   Monday, but Mr. Trump has for weeks been tweeting that House and   
   Senate investigations into Russian meddling in the November   
   election should be focused on potentially illegal leaks that he   
   claims the Obama administration made to the media about his   
   campaign and its contacts with Russian officials.   
      
   “The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find   
   the leakers,” the president tweeted on Sunday.   
      
   A day earlier, Mr. Trump praised Fox News on Twitter for a   
   report that the network published online with the claim that   
   someone “very well known, very high up [and] very senior in the   
   intelligence world” was responsible for unmasking the names of   
   several private citizens affiliated with the Trump campaign who   
   had been swept up in U.S. surveillance of foreign officials.   
      
   With that as a backdrop, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told   
   reporters Monday: “I don’t want to start getting into the   
   motives. Because we still haven’t — again, me getting to the   
   motives, assumes certain things in fact that I don’t think we’re   
   ready to go to yet. Because that, again, would be getting in the   
   middle of an investigation.   
      
   Trump administration critics have accused the White House of   
   promoting the claims about leaking and unmasking to distract   
   from allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russian   
   officials to sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor.   
      
   Flynn’s payments   
   Meanwhile on Monday, staffers from a different House committee   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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