Rand Paul Calls on Susan Rice to Testify on Unmasking of Trump Officials

On Monday, a bombshell report revealed that White House lawyers became aware last month that Susan Rice, the former national security adviser to Obama, was the individual responsible for “unmasking” Trump campaign and transition officials.

Following the report, Rand Paul publicly called for Susan Rice to testify before Congress to explain why she unmasked the names of Trump officials that were collected.

“I see no legitimate reason for her to be searching a database and unmasking people,” Paul said on “America’s Newsroom” Monday.

Paul stressed that the situation should not be taken lightly, arguing that the latest example of infringing on civil liberties highlights the need for reform.

Paul also noted that there aren’t any measures in place that could have prevented the former administration from searching through Trump officials and national security advisors’ conversations during the transition.

Smoking gun found! Obama pal and noted dissembler Susan Rice said to have been spying on Trump campaign.
https://t.co/SHJ41vhQu7

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 3, 2017

“If it is allowed, we shouldn’t be allowing it, but I don’t think should just discount how big a deal it is that Susan Rice was looking at these,” he told reporters Monday.

“And she needs to be asked, ‘Did President Obama ask her to do this? Was this a directive from President Obama?’ I think she should testify under oath on this.”

Paul reiterated that there are far too many people in government with the ability to unmask individuals without any oversight.

“The law says you can’t reverse target people, but how would you know that once you get inside the brain and the people that are unmasking people,” Paul continued.

“So, what if I decided to unmask and I’m there and I only unmask the conversations of my Democrat opponents — shouldn’t there be more restrictions for unmasking people in the political process?”

Paul argued that this is exactly why civil libertarians like himself have been fighting for years to expose intelligence agencies for collecting too much data and information on the American people.

“Millions of Americans’ data and phone calls are in this data bank,” Paul said. “We should not let political figures search this data bank for political purpose or for any kind of personal purposes.”

“This is a real separation of powers issue. And it shouldn’t be happening,” he added.

Paul revealed that he had a discussion about this issue with president Trump when they golfed together Sunday morning.

“The fact that there could be a political figure in the Obama administration that was purposely searching a database, looking for Trump officials, I think confirms exactly what the president said when he said that the Obama administration was doing something nefarious with regard to surveillance on his transition team,” Paul said.

“And it sounds like they were.”

If the president will listen to Rand Paul on major issues like this, he will be doing the country a major service.

The post Rand Paul Calls on Susan Rice to Testify on Unmasking of Trump Officials appeared first on RedState.

Source: http://www.redstate.com/mwalsh8/2017/04/04/rand-paul-calls-on-susan-rice-to-testify-on-unmasking-of-trump-officials/