Since last summer, there's been a firestorm of nonstop media coverage about alleged Russian meddling in our election process. A liberal shibboleth no less impressive than Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe has been quoted by the Washington Post as stating Trump’s presidency has been “rendered illegitimate by treasonous or otherwise unlawful manipulation.”
While I completely disagree with Prof. Tribe’s assertions on presidential legitimacy, I think his mention of “treasonous or otherwise unlawful manipulation” is worth further discussion. Frighteningly, the most profound and harmful manipulation of the US electoral process was not perpetrated by Russia at all, but instead appears to have been conducted by our own government.
On March 22, Congressman Devin Nunes, the Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, confirmed that the Obama administration had “incidentally monitored” communications between the Trump campaign and foreign officials. But, as the story continued to unfold, and more facts became known, this “incidental collection” took on a much more sinister aspect.
We now know that senior Obama administration officials—National Security Advisor Susan Rice being chief among them—perpetuated a scheme to politicize this “incidentally monitored” communication. According to Eli Lake at Bloomberg News, Rice began to routinely request the “unmasking” of Trump sources as early as July of last year, a rare step generally only used when there is probable cause a crime has been committed.
Rice flatly denied knowledge about the unmasking controversy a mere month ago, telling PBS “I know nothing about that,” and stating she “was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count.” However, last week week Rice admitted to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that she had, in fact, requested the unmasking of certain individuals, but only so she could more fully understand intelligence reports.
Rice went on to deny this information was ever used politically, stating that the unmasked information came to her only, and that “there’s no equivalence between unmasking and leaking.” But, that doesn’t seem to be the truth either.
Obama's Govt Used Intel To Undermine The Election - That Should Scare Us More Than The Russians
While I completely disagree with Prof. Tribe’s assertions on presidential legitimacy, I think his mention of “treasonous or otherwise unlawful manipulation” is worth further discussion. Frighteningly, the most profound and harmful manipulation of the US electoral process was not perpetrated by Russia at all, but instead appears to have been conducted by our own government.
On March 22, Congressman Devin Nunes, the Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, confirmed that the Obama administration had “incidentally monitored” communications between the Trump campaign and foreign officials. But, as the story continued to unfold, and more facts became known, this “incidental collection” took on a much more sinister aspect.
We now know that senior Obama administration officials—National Security Advisor Susan Rice being chief among them—perpetuated a scheme to politicize this “incidentally monitored” communication. According to Eli Lake at Bloomberg News, Rice began to routinely request the “unmasking” of Trump sources as early as July of last year, a rare step generally only used when there is probable cause a crime has been committed.
Rice flatly denied knowledge about the unmasking controversy a mere month ago, telling PBS “I know nothing about that,” and stating she “was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count.” However, last week week Rice admitted to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that she had, in fact, requested the unmasking of certain individuals, but only so she could more fully understand intelligence reports.
Rice went on to deny this information was ever used politically, stating that the unmasked information came to her only, and that “there’s no equivalence between unmasking and leaking.” But, that doesn’t seem to be the truth either.
Obama's Govt Used Intel To Undermine The Election - That Should Scare Us More Than The Russians
