Unravelling the Team Obama anti-Trump leak machine
According to Eli Lake of Bloomberg, Rice “requested the identities of US persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign.” Dozens of occasions.
By way of explanation, Rice told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that unmasking is a tool to help consumers of intelligence — which is what she was as national-security adviser — to understand the context of overheard discussions.
It’s important to note that Rice wasn’t an intelligence official or analyst. She was a foreign-policy aide. She had no need of operational intelligence in these cases.
For example, why would she have needed to know that, in the only specific unmasking case we know of, the “US Person” in the transcripts was her former Obama administration colleague Michael J. Flynn?
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Indeed, whoever told the Times about Team Obama’s efforts to spread what were called “breadcrumbs” of intelligence throughout the executive branch wasn’t doing so to blow the whistle on these activities. They did it because he or she or they were and are proud of their ingenuity and couldn’t help bragging about it a little.
According to Eli Lake of Bloomberg, Rice “requested the identities of US persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign.” Dozens of occasions.
By way of explanation, Rice told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that unmasking is a tool to help consumers of intelligence — which is what she was as national-security adviser — to understand the context of overheard discussions.
It’s important to note that Rice wasn’t an intelligence official or analyst. She was a foreign-policy aide. She had no need of operational intelligence in these cases.
For example, why would she have needed to know that, in the only specific unmasking case we know of, the “US Person” in the transcripts was her former Obama administration colleague Michael J. Flynn?
[clip]
Indeed, whoever told the Times about Team Obama’s efforts to spread what were called “breadcrumbs” of intelligence throughout the executive branch wasn’t doing so to blow the whistle on these activities. They did it because he or she or they were and are proud of their ingenuity and couldn’t help bragging about it a little.
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