How unmasking works – and how it worked under Obama
Hee’s how unmasking generally works:
When unmasking occurs, it must be based upon a valid reason, and only for the person who requests the unmasking; intelligence reports do not get re-disseminated with the name or statements of the U.S. person unmasked. NSA rules say that unmasking must be “necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance”, or be done with the consent of the U.S. person who would be unmasked, or be pursuant to a finding that the U.S. person is a foreign agent or terrorist, or the unmasked information includes evidence about a crime…
It’s difficult or perhaps impossible to see how the unmaskings of Flynn that occurred at the tail end of the Obama administration – when Trump had already been elected and the political officials in Obama group were on their way out – could have been justified under those rules. There was no credible evidence whatsoever (and they knew it) that Flynn was a foreign agent or terrorist, they didn’t have his consent, and there has been no indication there was anything in the calls they needed to understand in terms of understanding foreign intelligence. And by the way, most of the unmaskings of Flynn occurred some time before that Kislyak call.
More:
Unmasking is not rare or even unusual. For example, according to a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), “The number of U.S. person identities that NSA released during calendar year 2015 in response to specific requests to unmask an identity was 2,232…
Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice made requests to unmask members of the Trump campaign and transition, which she has said were apolitical requests, and only to provide context for intelligence reports. Rice was not the person who unmasked Flynn’s conversation with Kislyak, according to sources who spoke to the Wall Street Journal. Rice has said that she did unmask Trump aides at a December 2016 meeting at Trump Tower, unrelated to Kislyak or Russia. Fox News has reported that former ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power requested 260 unmaskings during 2016, mostly toward the end of the Obama administration, which Power has denied, saying that other people requested some of the unmaskings in her name.
So again: the bulk of these unmaskings occurred before the phone call, a short time after Trump’s election but before his inauguation. In other words, during the transition. I would bet that is unprecedented, but I haven’t seen anyone discussing that and I don’t know. It’s also unclear whether this was the beginning of unmaskings of the opposition, or whether it merely represents the period that was inquired about. We don’t know what had occurred before that time period during the Obama administration vis a vis his political rivals.
I have many questions. Unmaskings are not uncommon, but are they commonly requested by people in the positions held by the list of Obama people who did it, or is it usually just by intelligence officers? By whom is it usually requested, and for what reasons? Did the Obama administration people give reasons, as they were supposed to? What were the reasons? And how unusual is it for an outgoing administration to make such requests between an election and their departure, unmasking people working in the new administration? I would guess it’s never been done before, but I don’t know and would like to know.
And then of course, how common is it for that outgoing group to leak the names of the unmasked people, and the accusations against them, to the press, as part of a campaign to undermine a successor administration that hasn’t even begun? Again, I am pretty sure this is unprecedented.
More information here:
The list released today is of 39 top Obama officials who made 53 requests to unmask Lt. Gen. Flynn’s name from intelligence reports between election day (Nov. 8, 2016) and Jan. 31, 2017. While many of the requesters were Obama political appointees who resigned by Jan. 20, 2017, some were career officers at CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies.
The most stunning thing about this list is that the vast majority of these requests were dated between Dec. 14 and 16, which was before Flynn’s Dec. 29 phone call to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. An NSA intercept of this phone call was the basis of the Jan. 24, 2017, FBI interview with Flynn when two FBI agents used this intercept to entrap Flynn into lying about the call.
FBI Director James Comey broke protocol by not informing White House lawyers that he planned to send FBI agents to meet with Flynn…
This means Flynn was targeted for unmasking at least two weeks before the Dec. 29 phone call and the vast majority of these unmasking requests did not include intercepted conversations of Flynn having allegedly inappropriate conversations with Kislyak. This may indicate Flynn and other Trump transition officials were being targeted for unmasking as part of a fishing expedition to find dirt on them to undermine Trump’s presidency.
In addition, there were only seven unmasking requests by seven officials after the Dec. 29 Flynn-Kislyak phone call – by Vice President Biden, then Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other career officials. Since the information in this intercept leaked to the press, these seven officials are suspects for this criminal act…
Also interesting is the cluster of requests to demask Flynn’s name by Biden and others between Jan. 7 and Jan. 12, 2017, and the timing of these requests.
On Jan. 5, Biden, Comey, Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates met with Obama. In the meeting, Obama appeared to direct these officials to withhold Russia-related intelligence from the incoming Trump administration.
The next day, President-elect Trump received a misleading and incomplete briefing on the fraudulent Steele Dossier and Russian meddling in the 2016 election by Clapper, Comey, Brennan, and NSA Director Mike Rogers.
Over the next few days, there were seven high-level requests for Flynn’s name to be unmasked from NSA reporting. My guess is that this was not a coincidence and that a single intelligence official or NSC staff member suggested that these senior officials ask to see this information as part of a larger effort to target Flynn.
I think this will become clearer over time, and with the release of more information. In particular, it would be helpful to know who the leaker was. One thing of which I’m pretty certain is that the Democrats and the MSM will try to norm all of this behavior and act like it’s business as usual.
[NOTE: I’ve added a new tag: “Obamagate.”]
Not only was this highly unethical behavior simply “business as usual’ for the MSM, but to suggest otherwise (as in #Obamagate) is to traffic in “conspiracy theories” of the worst kind. So thorough has been the left’s corruption of language that it is now irrefutable that almost every theory derided by progressives as fabricated or unfounded is likely to be largely, if not entirely, true.
Well this certainly sounds like ‘Obamagate’. Just saw a video by Dan Bongino – no unmasking requests of Flynn between Dec. 28 and Jan 5 – so how did the FBI get the transcript and know it was Flynn on the call of Dec 29 as Comey has testified and talked about in the Jan.5 meeting with Obama, etal? The only way was via presidential request from Obama for surveillance of Kislyak – set up the situation by expelling Russian diplomats so Kislyak would certainly call the incoming Trump intelligence head when he was on vacation in Dominican Republic and it would be obvious he was calling Flynn. Interesting.
On a more basic level, since there was never , ever any proof that Trump/Flynn – really anybody from the Trump “team,” – was colluding with the Ruskies, there was never a reason at all to go after Flynn.
Obama, et. al., under his directions, wished to destroy Flynn because he would reveal all the dirty and illegal crap conducted during Obama’s presidency. After all, Flynn had been a member of Obama’s intelligence staff for two years, as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and was fully aware of all the illegal activities that Obama was running.
Flynn knew where all the bodies were buried and Obama had to “eliminate” him.
Thus the scheme to get Flynn.
Obama and those who conspired to overthrow Trump, should be EXECUTED for treason. Hanging them would be appropriate.
Douglas Park:
Dan Bongino is following up on the info that there was no unmasking requested for Flynn’s call to Russian Ambassador Krysliac (sic?) on Dec 29. The POTUS can authorize surveillance w/o unmasking with concurrence from the Attorney General (Loretta Lynch). So all the BS from Judge A. Sullivan would be expected in order to protect BHO.
https://soundcloud.com/dan-bongino
Neo said: “This may indicate Flynn and other Trump transition officials were being targeted for unmasking as part of a fishing expedition to find dirt on them to undermine Trump’s presidency.”
This is certainly what I believe. Whether or not they expected to find dirt, they for sure wanted to undermine Trump’s presidency. It takes a special kind of partisanship to want to do this, and even more to believe an American election can be turned over between the election and the week of the inauguration.
But remember the moment: Democrats were begging electors to be faithless, then they were calling on Republican members of the government to invoke the 25th amendment, then they leaked the “pee tape” story, then they had the women’s march in half a dozen cities (and do I remember correctly there was a women’s march in one or two foreign capitals?) the day of the inauguration, and then they cranked up the Russia collusion story. This was all in the time frame between November 5th and January 25th. That’s a stunning list of insubordination and treason, amirite?
And through it all, there was an amazing lack of pushback from either Republicans or from the press. So they thought they could just continue their treasonous acts, and they have, indeed, done so.
F:
That wasn’t something I said. It was a quote from the linked article.
I believe it’s true, but I didn’t write it.
Thomas Lifson picks up a post by J E Dyer I linked a couple of days ago, and makes sense of the deep details.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/05/the_emotheremsecrets_inside_grenells_satchel_are_the_key_to_the_biggest_political_scandal_in_us_history.html
https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/05/13/beyond-biden-brennan-and-clapper-how-grenells-satchel-tells-us-this-is-on-the-right-track/
Crooked cops doing dirty work. Unmasking for politics. That’s illegal. Leaking the info, very illegal – known and clear to be illegal. “For politics” is always an arguable question.
I believe Obama is the top crooked cop.
I don’t believe he’ll be indicted before Nov. With the increase in smoke, I’d guess there’s more and more thinking a fire is there or about to be there.
Last year Durham was supposed to give indictments by June; I understand the current thought is end of summer. Indictments after the election are still important, but much less so.
Hoping for; expecting, not so much.
Bho brought Chicago style politics to DC. Bald faced corruption, nasty smear campaigns against enemies, lies and distortions, and never ending abuse of power. I could have added voter fraud, but that has been going on since 1960.
As Liberty is the topic du jour, I thought I would post Dyer’s Twitter slogan (I’m sure there is a social-media-name for it).
J.E. Dyer @OptimisticCon
Retired Naval officer deconstructing the shibboleths of modern leftist-progressivism. Standing athwart history yelling Bring it!
I agree with JohnTyler as to why Obama and his minions went after Flynn.
“Obama and those who conspired to overthrow Trump, should be EXECUTED for treason. Hanging them would be appropriate.”
Treason is a very high bar to prove with specific terms. More practical to charge the guilty with easily proven crimes. The consequence may be less than truly proportionate to the offense but avoids a probable hung jury even with sufficient evidence or possible not guilty verdict, due to “insufficient” evidence.
As well as denying the left any future ‘martyrs’.
And given the racial ‘component’ to hangings, I prefer as humane an execution as possible, followed with placing the executed’s heads on pikes… for its deterrent value.
The past week has provided very useful information. The most useful, in my opinion, is the release of the transcripts of top officials revealing under oath that they had no evidence of any of the accusations that they were making about Trump. They told the truth to the committee behind closed doors, but did not tell the truth to the American voters. They lied, through their teeth and in public. One of their biggest complaints against the President is that he is described as a liar. After this most recent revelation, will the Dems and their media acolytes still be bringing up their complaints about Trump’s integrity? Of course, yes. This business is a one way street.
About those obstruction charges…
https://comicallyincorrect.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/coup-obstruct-la-600.jpg
Never forget this — even the people who hated Trump could not come up with evidence against him — although I still don’t understand why they didn’t just make it up, as they did with the Steele Dossier.
https://twitter.com/thebradfordfile/status/1257694425687482374
“Remember John Ratcliffe destroyed Robert Mueller and his entire sham investigation in four minutes.
THIS is why the swamp is scared.”
The next best line is at the 2:00 minute mark.
The best is at the end.
Well Andy McCarty has also come to the conclusion that General Flynn was not unmasked; Flynn wasn’t masked at all as Dan Bongino speculated on Friday. Other intelligence agencies or foreign agencies did the work for the BHO junta. Worst president ever.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/05/michael-flynn-unmasking-real-story-is-when-he-was-not-masked-in-the-first-place/