Susan Rice's Trump Team Unmasking : What Did President Obama Know and When Did He Know It?

CNN is now a political action committee for the Democrat Party. Susan Rice is the last cog that sent CNN crashing down beyond repair as a bonafide news outlet. It has become a full-fledged propaganda arm for the Progressive Democrats and their leader -- Barack Obama. The New American website had the right headline on Tuesday : "Susan Rice Spied on Trump — And CNN Doesn't Care." Despite the explosive revelations about Susan Rice's unmasking of Trump team members and her even asking for “detailed spreadsheets” of legal phone calls involving then-private citizen Donald Trump and his aides -- clearly for political purposes -- many in the liberal mainstream media choose to ignore the story or downplay its importance. CNN has gone so far as to call the story nothing more than a “fake scandal ginned up by right-wing media and Trump.” Don Lemon led off CNN Tonight, “On this program tonight, we will not insult your intelligence by pretending” the story was legitimate : “Nor will we aid and abet the people trying to misinform you, the American people, by creating a diversion. Not going to do it.” The chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, was just as adamant, calling it a non-story created to distract from the story of Trump’s tweet that Trump Tower was “wiretapped.” Sciutto told Anderson Cooper : “Again, to senior intelligence officials who work for both Democrats and Republicans, this appears to be a story, largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from this larger investigation." Sciutto even defended Rice on her claim that she did not even know about the unmasking -- when she was the person who was directing it! But, according ot Sciutto : “From her perspective, she didn’t know what specific unmasking Deven Nunes and others are talking about, in part because that is something she asks -- or asked during the regular course of her work as national security advisor.” [Work that one out -- Sciutto says Rice didn't know what Nunes was talking about because she unmasked US citizens regularly...???] When it comes to talking about "unmasking," CNN has moved beyond any pretence of objectivity in its zeal to attack the Trump administration, while taking on the role of defending Susan Rice -- and above all, Barack Obama. • • • THE ONLY QUESTION NOW IS WHAT AND WHEN DID OBAMA KNOW. What is now clear -- although CNN loudly denies it -- is that as early as 2015 in the presidential campaign, and especially after the 2016 presidential election, Obama's then-National Security Advisor Susan Rice asked for the names of US persons found in what has been described as “raw intelligence reports.” Normally, when US intelligence agencies are surveilling foreigners, the names of US persons who are involved in conversation with those foreigners are edited out in summaries of the monitored conversations. Instead of using the American citizen’s actual name, the citizen is referred to as “US Person One,” etc. In this case, however, Rice wanted the real names of the persons. These names were later leaked to media friendly to the Obama administration. • Former US Attorney Joseph diGenova has declared : “What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals...the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls." DiGenova said that there was nothing illegal about activities of the Trump associates -- that they were in “perfectly legal conversations.” • Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence for the National Security Council, in the course of a routine review, discovered that Rice had made multiple requests to “unmask” US persons found in the reports. When he brought this dubious activity to the General Counsel’s office at the Obama White House, he was told to drop his probe. One unnamed US official noted that the reports contained political information, such as with whom the Trump transition people were meeting, the views of Trump’s foreign policy aides, and what plans were being made for the incoming Trump administration. • Apparently, House Intelligence Committee Chariman Deven Nunes has seen actual logs of Rice’s multiple requests to unmask US persons -- persons who have apparently committed no crimes, and for whom no FISA surveillance warrants existed. Fox News reported : “For a private citizen to be ‘unmasked,’ or named, in an intelligence report is extremely rare. Typically, the American unmasked is a suspect in a crime, is in danger, or has to be named to explain the context of the report.” None of that seems to be the case concerning Susan Rice's unmasking the Trump team names and turning them over to officials at the National Security Council, the Department of Defense, CIA Director John Brennan, and DNI Director James Clapper -- Obama's top national security team -- plus Rice's assistant Ben Rhodes. • SUSAN RICE HAD ONLY ONE BOSS. His name -- President Barack Obama. And, it would be a mistake to think that only Rice was involved in the Obama administration surveillance of Trump and his associates. Retired Colonel James Waurishuk, who has served with both the National Security Council and as deputy director for intelligence at the US Central Command, insists that others had to be involved : “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.’ ” Waurishuk said, “It’s unbelievable....This is really, really serious stuff. 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.” Waurishik even stated : “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, to spy on the elected, yet-to-be-seated President.” And, Michael Doran, a former senior director at the National Security Council, was even more direct, stating : “That’s a felony And you can get 10 years for that. It is a tremendous abuse of the system. We’re not supposed to be monitoring American citizens....somebody blew a hole in the wall between national security secrets and partisan politics.” • • • SO LET'S ASK THE OBVIOUS QUESTION. Just how high up the chain of command does this go? Obviously, Susan Rice was a person with extremely close ties to President Obama. Remember, Obama wanted to make her Secretary of State after Hillary Clinton's resignation, but because of Rice's public lies about the Benghazi attacks, there was far too much congressional resistance to her confirmation to the top position at the State Department. So, Obama named her National Security Advisor, which does not require Senate confirmation. It is also a position that gave her daily access to President Obama. For her to ask for such sensitive unmasked information at least causes us to wonder if she had discussed it with Obama. In the words of the late Senator Howard Baker regarding the Watergate scandal, “What did the President know -- and when did he know it?” • • • THE FACTS. As reported by Circa News (a new, highly reliable internet news outlet), Rice requested the unmasking of the names of Trump team officials mentioned in the so-called “incidental” surveillance of the Trump transition team. Daniel John Sobieski reported in American Thinker that computer logs left behind at the White House by former President Obama’s team indicate that Rice accessed numerous intelligence reports during Obama's last seven months in office that contained National Security Agency intercepts involving Donald Trump and his associates. Intelligence sources told Circa the logs discovered by the National Security Council staff suggested Rice’s interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans' identities. Rice's interest appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump’s election in November, starting his transition that continued through January. The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future President, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said, while most had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal. • Circa sources said Rice requested the unmasking of names, which is something only three people, according to Circa, were authorized to do -- Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice, his CIA Director John Brennan and Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Sobieski says : "Dozens of times in 2016, those intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted talking to foreign sources or were the subject of conversations between two or more monitored foreign figures. Sometimes the Americans’ names were officially unmasked; other times they were so specifically described in the reports that their identities were readily discernible. If Susan Rice had worked for Richard Nixon, she could have been one of his Watergate 'plumbers,' perhaps retiring as plumber emeritus. We are all familiar with Susan Rice’s tour of the Sunday talk shows after the Benghazi terrorist attack. That was no accident, but a calculated part of the Obama administration’s disinformation campaign to protect President Obama’s re-election chances and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chances to be Obama’s successor in the White House." • Investor’s Business Daily stated in an editorial : "Newly obtained emails on Benghazi show then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice was coached by a key White House aide to lie and ignore the facts known and reported on the ground to make the administration look good." If further proof is needed, Sobieski quotes a September 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, assistant to the President and deputy national security advisor for strategic communications. The email was contained in documents released by Judicial Watch and obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request -- the email subject line was "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET." The Rhodes email was sent to other key White House staffers such as then-Communications Director David Plouffe and Press Secretary Jay Carney the day before now-National Security Advisor Susan Rice made her whirlwind tour on five Sunday news show appearances to specifically and emphatically blame an Internet video for the September 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other nationals were killed. One of the goals listed in the emails was the need for Rice "to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy." She was also to "reinforce the President and Administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges." Sobieski concludes : "Rice was ordered to lie about Benghazi and blame it on a video. • Rice was [also] sent out to lie for the Obama administration about Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl, for whom the Obama administration would trade four top captured Taliban leaders. Says Sobieski : "Despite the uncontestable fact that Bergdahl walked away from his post in time of war, leaving his weapon and gear behind, and the unanimous statements of those who served with him and over him and those who tried to find him....The White House sent National Security Advisor Susan Rice, of Benghazi video lie fame, to the talk shows to say Bergdahl served with 'honor and distinction.' " • Sobieski also points out that Rice was involved with administration lies to protect another administration -- Bill Clinton's -- after the terrorist attacks on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, precursors to Benghazi. Again, her motive was not to tell the truth but to protect the interests of her political bosses, according to Sobieski : "A mission was attacked after warnings, Americans were killed after security requests were denied, and a diplomat went on TV to explain it all -- our current UN ambassador, after embassy bombings in 1998." Senator Susan Collins said : "What troubles me so much is the Benghazi attack in many ways echoes the attacks on both embassies in 1998, when Susan Rice was head of the African region for our State Department. In both cases, the ambassador begged for additional security." Just like Benghazi, requests in 1998 for more security were denied, warnings were issued, prior incidents were ignored and Susan Rice went on TV to explain it all. Sobieski explains : "Within 24 hours, Rice, then assistant secretary of state for African affairs, went on PBS as spokesperson for the administration -- just as she was regarding Benghazi when she parroted the administration's false narrative on five Sunday talk shows on September 16, 2012, that Benghazi was caused by a flash mob enraged by an Internet video. Then, as now, she worked for a Clinton. Also then, as now, she went on TV to claim, falsely, that we 'maintain a high degree of security at all of our embassies at all times' and that we 'had no telephone warning or call of any sort like that, that might have alerted either embassy just prior to the blast.' There were plenty of warnings and our East African diplomats were begging for help as Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi." • • • DESTROYING PRESIDENT TRUMP. Susan Rice has been a key part of both the Clinton and Obama administrations’ disinformation machines designed to keep the truth from the American people and hide what was likely criminal negligence in the deaths of Americans at the hands of terrorists. That she should be up to her eyeballs in the 'unmasking' round of political corruption by Obama & Co, using classified data gleaned by surveillance of Americans to sabotage an incoming President, is unconscionable, but not a surprise. • On Monday, Attorney Sam Nunberg, a former Trump advisor, told Newsmax that he believes misconduct surrounding intelligence collection went as high as former President Barack Obama himself : "I think that Susan Rice, I think that [former deputy national security advisor] Ben Rhodes, I think that most likely Barack Obama himself through his conduits were leaking about the names they got through intelligence." Nunberg told Newsmax : "Democrats "want to use this issue to delegitimize President Trump, to delegitimize his agenda...." • Andrew McCarthy told Newsmax on Tuesday that asking for the names of American citizens to be unmasked for intelligence gathering was a serious abuse of power : "I think it's extraordinarily serious. I've been trying to underscore to people the difference between what's illegal and what's an abuse of power. When Richard Nixon was impeached, or left office on the verge of impeachment, only part of it was a crime in which he had some participation. A lot of the allegations of impeachment against him involved the abuse of power, specifically the abuse of power or attempts to abuse the powers of government agencies like the CIA and the IRS. There's a difference between a violation of criminal law and something that makes somebody unfit for political office. Sometimes those two overlap, but, in this instance I think what we're going to find is what happened here was an abuse of power after a lawful intelligence collection." McCarthy said it constitutes an abuse of power because "the intelligence collection, to the extent it catches Americans which is inevitable, is one of things that the law really grapples with. Because on the one hand we know these powers are very important in terms of knowing what countries that may not have our interest at heart are up to, and at the same time protecting Americans because there's no court order that authorizes the targeting of Americans of these surveillances." When Newsmax asked McCarthy if Rice could claim "executive privilege" if her actions are probed by the FBI, he answered : "Executive privilege belongs to the President, and the President right now is Donald Trump." • • • WILL THE GOP STAND TALL AND PROSECUTE OBAMA AND HIS AIDES? President Trump on Wednesday told the New York Times that former President Obama's National Security Advisor Susan Rice may have committed a crime by requesting the identities of his associates mentioned in communications intercepted by security agencies. In an Oval Offce interview, Trump said : "I think it's going to be the biggest story...It's such an important story for our country and the world. It is one of the big stories of our time." Asked if Rice, who denied leaking any information, had committed a crime, the President told the Times, "Do I think? Yes, I think." Trump said he would explain himself "at the right time." • Republican Senator John Cornyn, a member of both the Senate Judiciary and Select Committee on Intelligence, suggested in a tweet earlier Tuesday that Rice "needs to testify under oath." Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee, told Fox News earlier that while he doesn't know whether Rice acted improperly, “when it comes to Susan Rice, you need to verify, not trust." Graham said he does not want to form an opinion -- just yet : "There's a way to find out. I intend to find out.” • Senator Rand Paul suggested Rice "ought to be under subpoena," adding that the stories emerging about Rice are "actually eerily similar to what Trump accused them of, which is eavesdropping on conversations for political reasons." Senator Paul, calling it "a big deal," also suggested Rice needs to be asked whether she communicated with President Obama directly about the surveillance information. • And in a letter to both the House and Senate Intelligence committees released Tuesday night, a group of GOP lawmakers who served as members of the Trump transition demanded that Rice be called to testify, suggesting the matter is worthy of an immediate Congressional investigation. In the letter, Representatives Marsha Blackburn, Chris Collins, and Lou Barletta suggest Rice's behavior "appears negligent at best and criminal at worst." • Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich pointed out what she sees as the irony in the situation : "Democrats have gone from: Trump is insane for suggesting Obama admin spied on him, [to] Susan Rice was just doing her job." • It is now the turn of the Republican leadership to earn their salaries and the trust, weak as it is, that America has placed in them to be honest voices for law and order. Appropriate congressional investigations, referrals to the Justice Department for prosecution, and all other legal recourses should be employed. We have had enough of the GOP's laissez faire attitude of lying down so that Progressives can walk all over them while destroying the US Republic and Consitiution. • • • DEAR READERS, the Fourth Amendment shields American citizens from unreasonable search and seizure of not only their person or belongings but also their private communications. This is why government officials must ask a FISA court for permission if they seek to monitor a citizen suspected of acting as an “agent of a foreign power.” These FISA requirements protect US citizens from direct and indirect surveillance. The government has very specific instructions : minimize surveillance of the US citizen -- “minimization procedures” are codified in US law at 50 USC. § 1801, which defines minimization procedures as “specific procedures...to minimize the acquisition and retention, and prohibit the dissemination, of nonpublicly available information concerning unconsenting United States persons.” The accompanying procedures issued by the Director of National Intelligence -- under Obama it was James Clapper, who lied to Congress about surveillance of US citizens and later refused to correct his false testimony -- provide two exceptions for when a US citizen’s name can be unveiled or “unmasked” in the course of monitoring a foreigner: (1) where there is evidence of crime or (2) when it is necessary to understand intelligence information. • Shortly after Nunes announced that “[d]etails about US persons associated with the incoming administration...with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value, were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting,” CNN’s Manu Raju reported : “[s]ome of the communications picked up were Trump transition officials talking about Trump’s family, Intel source says.” Why were conversations about Trump’s family picked up and potentially unmasked and disseminated by the Obama White House? Where was the use if the minimization procedure to protect US citizens from such surveillance. • On Wednesday, American Thinker ran a story with the headline "Somebody's got to go to jail." As late as last October, nobody believed Trump would win the presidency and yet Obama surveillance began three months after Trump announced his candidacy in 2015. American Thinker asks : "What did these spies hope to discover? Something to take him out, to be sure. Of what were they so afraid? That he could actually win? Indeed they were apparently afraid of exactly that and were determined to prevent it." • Obama seems to have made sure that the Trump intel was leaked to the media, and especially after Trump unexpectedly won. It worked : the mainstream media leaked like a sieve. And, as a fallback, Obama &Co devised the "Russian card" -- plant the suspicion that Trump colluded with Russia -- Trump is a world class businessman, and he and his associates would be talking to people around the world, so their intel sweep could 'snare' him. The Obama administration already knew there was no "collusion." Susan Rice's unmasking of Trump intel sweeps had already told them that. There was NO Evidence of any Trump wrongdoing. But, Obama & Co didn't care -- their goal was to take Trump down, and impeach him. This is about civil liberties, but it’s also about the extent to which the Obama administration used the US intelligence apparatus for political means. If Obama and Rice cannot ultimately justify their actions – and they can only do so by conclusively tying Trump to some level of collusion with Moscow – then this is a scandal of historic proportions. We knew of Obama’s contempt for the Constitution. We did not have any idea just how vast that contempt actually was. • Very serious, Soviet-style crimes have been committed by operatives in the Obama administration. But, now it seems that Obama & Co have been uncovered. And someone has to go to jail. • CNN has refused to cover the story. The mainstream media are frantically publishing ridiculous stories in the attempt to convince us of Trump's collusion with Russia. The MSM presents the Trump-Russia collusion story as true even though there is absolutely No Evidence to show that. They present the claim that Trump was spied on as a false story even though we have 100% proof that Trump people were listened to and that the information was leaked to the press. It is the world turned upside down, with truth being ridiculed as lies and lies being spread as truth. As American Thinker put it : "Anyone who believes that Trump wasn't specifically targeted for political reasons probably still believes the Benghazi killings were caused by a video, that Obama had no idea that IRS was targeting political opponents, that Obama had no idea that Hillary was violating the law by using a non-secure server until three years after she left, that Obama had no idea that his administration was gun running to Mexico and that Hillary and her aides had no intent to break the law." • Common Sense, America, Common Sense. We heard that immortal phrase from Tom Paine in 1776 : “Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions....It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies; yet our present numbers are sufficient to repel the force of all the world.” __Thomas Paine, Common Sense. The media and Democrats are colluding -- they mean to destroy President Trump and America for their own personal and collective Progressive socialist gain. Wake up, America.