Susan Rice in the Hot Seat

This article first appeared in Eagle Rising.

Richard Nixon must be laughing in his grave.

The latest fight between the Democrats and Republicans centers around the whole mess surrounding the Trump campaign and transition teams coming under our own intelligence surveillance. Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice is in the middle now that it has been revealed that she was unmasking members of the Trump team who (or whose names) showed up on electronic surveillance of foreign targets.

What that means is that when an American or his/her name comes up during a legitimate national security intercept, their identities must be masked. Occasionally, the intercepting agency will “unmask” them in order to put the meaning of the intercepted communication into context. Rice apparently oversaw the unmasking of Trump people going back to when he announced for the presidency. It has also been revealed that the unmasking increased between the election and inauguration.

Interestingly, when Rice was interviewed on PBS on March 22, after Rep. Devin Nunes made his stunning revelations, she stated that she knew nothing about it. This appears to be a blatant lie, comparable to the lies she told after the Benghazi terror attack.

Now that her name is in the headlines, Rice has gone on NBC to insist that it was all for legitimate intelligence purposes and that she never leaked anyone’s name. However, don’t forget that Obama, in his final weeks in office, authorized a mass sharing of intelligence among our intelligence services. That increased the likelihood of leaks.

The Democrats and their stooges in the media, most notably CNN and MSNBC ,are defending Rice and insisting that she did nothing wrong. They insist that this is a Republican diversion to take attention away from the allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians in gaining their help in defeating Hillary Clinton. Don Lemon told his CNN audience on Monday night that he would not “insult the intelligence” of his viewers by even going into the matter.

At least he didn’t call it a”third rate burglary”.

It should be noted that the relevant law enforcement and intelligence leaders have stated that no evidence has been found to show that the Trump team colluded with the Russians. Yet this is still the focus of the Democrats and the mainstream media.

I say let it all be investigated. What I think is going to come out is our second Watergate. In this case, the Obama administration was using our intelligence services to dig up dirt on American citizens
(Trump and his team) and leak it to defeat Trump’s candidacy,and after the election, to discredit his presidency. If true, this is a shameful abuse of our intelligence services for political purposes.

It would also be a crime.