By Judi McLeod
Most of us knew that the mainstream media would move in with the most creative alibis for Susan Rice requesting the unmasking of Trump officials, by daybreak today.
As sure as daybreak follows night, CBS was first.
“Then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice did at times ask that certain names in intelligence reports be “unmasked” in order to understand the context in which they were mentioned in intelligence reports, a former national security official told CBS News.” (CBS News, April 4, 2017)
Did ask at times hardly exonerates Rice from making it possible for the Obama administration to spy on Donald J. Trump and company.
Unmasking intelligence reports “in order to understand the context in which they were mentioned” is a CBS cop-out destined to be picked up by most, if not all, of the mainstream media today to keep the Rice scandal from spreading any further.
And then there’s this: “Rice asked for the identities of those Americans picked up during surveillance of foreign nationals when it was deemed important context for national security, and she did not ask that the information be disseminated broadly, according to this former official. (CBS)
Who needs to “broadly” disseminate, CBS when Telephone, Telegraph, Tell-a-Democrat will do?
“A Monday report by Bloomberg’s Eli Lake said that Rice requested the unmasking of Trump officials. Names of Americans swept up incidentally in the collection of intelligence are normally masked, or kept redacted, in intelligence briefings. However, the law provides for much leeway when it comes to unmasking by National Security Council officials, which suggests that Rice’s request was legal. (CBS)
“This type of request was not a special practice related to the Trump transition team, though the former official did not dispute the reporting by Bloomberg.
“As a procedural matter, an intelligence briefer would have had to clear a requested unmasking with the head of the agency providing the intelligence. It is unclear why these intelligence intercepts were considered so important that they would need to be shared with the president’s national security adviser.
“A former national security official told CBS News that when such information on U.S. individuals is approved and provided by the intelligence community, it is typically given directly to the senior official who made the request and is not broadly disseminated.
“On some occasions, the official added, it is necessary to know the identity of U.S. persons in order to understand the context and substance of the intelligence. There is nothing improper, unusual or political about such requests.”
Uh- Huh.
Didn’t take CBS News to get back to their favourite ruse:
“President Donald Trump tweeted last month that Trump Tower had been wiretapped by President Obama, a claim for which there is still no evidence. Later, House Intelligence chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said he had obtained evidence showing that the names of Trump associates that were swept up incidentally by intelligence agencies had been unmasked. That evidence is believed to have been provided to Nunes by the White House.
“Rice had said that she was unaware of the names of Trump officials being swept up incidentally by intelligence agencies. “I know nothing about this,” she told “PBS NewsHour” last month when asked about Nunes’ claim. “
Believe it or not, this is how CBS headlined their daily news this morning: ‘Syria chemical attack, Susan Rice and “unmasking,” and police reform’.
As savvy Canada Free Press reader, Paul Bush pointed out: “Notice how they incorporated the Rice issue with another subject to water down her criminal behavior?”
“Very clever I must admit.”
Too clever by half, Mr. Bush.
Worse still: As the veil is lifted on how the progressive left ran the White House for the better part of the last decade, Barry Soetoro is a saboteur at large.
In point of fact, toasting his toes in the warm sands of Tahiti, he’s taken himself right out of the picture.
In other words , the cause of it all is not even on American soil.
Rather than ever having to face justice for running an administration that spied on American citizens, he’ll get to boast about it in his $60-million-plus book deal.
How ironic that a president who spent millions sealing his personal papers got to arrange for the unmasking of all information pertaining to his replacement, family and campaign workers.
But President Trump faces even bigger problems this morning
But President Trump faces even bigger problems this morning:
“A very disturbing report has come out from Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Fox News that Hillary Clinton and six top staffers kept their Top Secret and/or Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearances after she left her Secretary of State position in 2013. And they also kept their physical access to TS/SCI facilities and databases, which required those TS/SCI clearances, possibly up through the 2016 election and beyond.” (Cliff Kincaid, April 4, 2017)
“The facilities are called SCIFs, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, pronounced “skiffs,” which are vault-like secure buildings or rooms for protecting the most sensitive intelligence and defense data.
“Hillary and her cronies may still have their SCIF clearances and access even today in 2017. The State Department has stonewalled Senator Grassley, Fox News and Judicial Watch for months, refusing to answer questions about such outrageous continued access to the most highly sensitive secrets by the most reckless and irresponsible official in all of history.”
Send Attorney General Jeff Sessions to remove the Skiffs, from Hillary and her six top staffers immediately, Mr. President. Nothing else you do today will be as important.
America now needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
