Axelrod: Trump’s Susan Rice allegation ‘beneath the dignity of that office’

Susan Rice, national security adviser for President Barack Obama, participates in a briefing at the White House on July 22, 2015. But rather than attempt to fight them and carry on with the Russian Federation investigation, Nunes said he would recuse himself from that process while staying on as chairman of the full committee. President Trump has been keen on tracking down any leakers. So with each new revelation or phase of the investigation, the questions get more and more uncomfortable.

“The charges [against Nunes] are entirely false and politically motivated, and are being leveled just as the American people are beginning to learn the truth about the improper unmasking of the identities of US citizens and other abuses of power”, he said.

Woodruff started the interview by raising Nunes’ unexpected disclosure that Trump “and the people around him may have been caught up in surveillance of foreign individuals and that their identities may have been disclosed”.

I know Erik Prince.

Why the gleeful eruption of accusations? “You’re talking to the president’s right hand”, said McCarthy, who added that the NSA still should have denied the request.

If only we can do this with Trump’s entire presidency. They permit the NSA to search where it wishes – for example, in certain ZIP codes, area codes and service provider customer lists – and retain whatever it finds.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Tuesday that he could be interested in interviewing Rice as well. Rice has firmly denied that she or other Obama officials used secret intelligence reports to spy on Trump associates for political purposes.

There is so far no evidence that Rice’s actions were illegal, but some Republicans have accused her behavior of being politically motivated. If so, she would be in one of the smallest groups of Washington (that could be a hard question under oath in a future hearing).

President Trump suggested without evidence Wednesday that Susan E. Rice, former national security adviser in his predecessor’s administration, may have committed a crime in requesting the identities of Trump campaign associates that were contained in classified intelligence reports.

But unless here is an intelligence value to knowing the American’s name in the so-called “incidental collection”, that name is not revealed in the reports and is instead referred to as “U.S. Person 1”, for example. One person was Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trump’s national security adviser until he was sacked for misleading other administration officials about the nature of conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

One name unmasked in intelligence reports was Michael Flynn, who resigned after it was revealed that he mischaracterized to Vice President Mike Pence conversations he had with the Russian ambassador.

High-ranking American officials can and do request the unmasking of US persons in these reports if it’s relevant to national security.

The probe followed revelations that Russian hackers broke into the computer network of the Democratic National Committee, a hack US officials and cybersecurity experts have publicly tied to Russian intelligence services. The list of unmasked individuals reportedly reached authorities at the National Security Council, as well as individuals at the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. It wasn’t a random fishing expedition that just happened to land on associates of Donald Trump.

Whoever leaked the classified information regarding the unmasked names might have committed a crime.

But he hasn’t shared any evidence to back up that claim. Rand Paul tweeted, “Smoking gun found!” Last month, he accused Obama of wiretapping his NY skyscraper and later said Obama had spied on his campaign. If there is a need for the investigating authorities to know who these people are, there is a process for “unmasking” them.

National-security experts have said that Rice’s reported requests to identify who was speaking with the foreign officials before Trump was inaugurated were neither unusual nor against the law.

“Do I think? Yes, I think”, Trump replied.

If Rice or someone else in the Obama administration did request the unmasking of Trump associates, would it be a crime? It was more than that: it was absolutely critical.