The nation's mainstream media and Democrats are engaged in a major cover up of the most explosive scandal since Watergate. Their collaboration is aimed at concealing the truth about the previous administration's covert plan to spy on President Trump's transition team.
Leaks and news reports have surfaced in recent days alleging former Obama officials shared secret intelligence on members of President Trump's inner circle during the months before his inauguration. Former administration officials and Democrats have been quick to shrug off the charges.
Susan Rice, the former president's National Security Advisor, performed a reprise of her role in the Benghazi video transgression as the surrogate of deconstruction. Appearing on PBS, an indignant Ms. Rice claimed she knew "nothing about" the Trump surveillance charges. That was on March 22.
On April 4, Ms. Rice reappeared on the airwaves with an alternative version of the truth. This time Ms. Rice did not deny knowledge of the surveillance, but insisted she "leaked nothing to nobody" about the data collection. It was a telling use of a double-negative by an Oxford College graduate.
Ms. Rice tightroped her way through the interview to avoid prosecution. It is a felony punishable by up to ten years in federal prison to leak classified intelligence information. Someone in government leaked highly sensitive communications to the press about ex-National Security Advisor Mike Flynn.
In her tortured explanation, Ms. Rice attempted to portray 'unmasking' as a routine practice, which it is not. Democrats leaped to her defense, suggesting that any collection of intelligence on Mr. Trump's associates was inadvertent. That claim stretches the bounds of credulity.
"Unmasking" is intelligence community "speak" for revealing the identities of U.S. citizens who are unintentionally spied on by the government's electronic monitoring of foreign targets. National security officials routinely receive reports with the names of Americans redacted (blacked out).
The process of unmasking must be requested by authorized administration officials and forwarded to the NSA, FBI or CIA. An extensive paper trail should exist, including the names of officials who asked for the identities to be revealed. Safeguards are in place to prevent unauthorized unmasking.
The FBI has the authority to request the records and follow the paper trail to determine the source of the leak. The agency also is one of the few government organizations with the power to grant an unmasking request. Yet FBI Director James Comey has been reticent to investigate the leak.
Not coincidentally, eight days before he left office, Mr. Obama worked behind the scenes to change the way surveillance was shared. He widened the list of administration officials who could view the raw NSA intelligence in a move to ensure the Russian-Trump issue would survive beyond his term.
This bombshell never made the front pages of any newspapers and was ignored by nearly every television network. The coverage stands in stark contrast to the media's inflammatory reporting on the widely debunked charges that the Trump campaign collaborated with the Russians in the election.
The same hypocrisy applies to Democrats, who have insisted on a plethora of probes to plow every rabbit hole to find the missing link between Trump and the Russians. Yet not a single Democrat appears interested in learning why a cloak-and-dagger operation targeted team Trump.
Spying on Americans is a breach of the public trust of the government's security apparatus. Depending on the circumstances it may also be a federal crime. If there has been no wrongdoing by the previous administration, Democrats should welcome the opportunity to clear the air.
The fact that Democrats and the media are concealing the scandal is a troubling sign the truth may expose the misuse of sensitive intelligence for political reasons. Republicans should demand an independent counsel be appointed to determine if there were flagrant violations of federal law.
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