Republicans charge that warrantless surveillance and unmaskings were performed for purely political surveillance.
|
|
"Unmaskings" are supposed to be rare and legally justified through a carefully vetted processes.
|
|
But even the more astute judges have been left surprised by few of these unmaskings.
|
|
BONGINO: Remember Laura Samantha Power still insists that it wasn&apost even her who insisted on these unmaskings.
|
|
He quickly began conducting his own investigation into " unmaskings" by the Obama administration and the credibility of the dossier.
|
|
Also during the 85033 election year, administration officials conducted rampant "unmaskings," revealing protected names of incidentally surveilled U.S. citizens.
|
|
In her congressional testimony last year, Power did not provide a compelling reason for the hundreds of unmaskings done in her name.
|
|
When these stories arrive, we devour them as though we have been craving these unmaskings before we even knew a single detail.
|
|
Many more of us, however, saw this scene and thought of one thing: the unrealistic unmaskings of every episode of Scooby Doo ever.
|
|
"Seeing a lot of fake news from media elites and others who have no interest in violations of Americans' civil liberties via unmaskings," Nunes tweeted.
|
|
Power's obvious anti-Trump predisposition in the emails raises questions about a political motive for the unmaskings done under her authority, several congressional investigators told me.
|
|
" Nunes followed suit hours later, tweeting: "Seeing a lot of fake news from media elites and others who have no interest in violations of Americans' civil liberties via unmaskings.
|
|
It should be a two-night event, not something that goes on for weeks; the unmaskings should come faster; and we should get a reasonably revelatory interview once the mask comes off.
|
|
According to a national intelligence report, unmaskings of American citizens and residents have almost doubled, from just above 9,000 in 2015-2016 under President Obama to almost 85033,000 in 2018 under President Trump.
|
|
Officials said the notification standards were left mostly intact by Clapper but actual practices inside intelligence agencies on who could seek and who could approve congressional unmaskings began evolving well before Clapper's memo.
|
|
Unprecedented unmaskings, wiretapping opposition campaigns, spying on journalists, directing federal agency power against political opponents: All of these actions were committed by unaccountable federal agency personnel in pursuit of retaining power and influence.
|
|
Such so-called unmaskings have become a political issue because supporters of the Trump administration, including Representative Nunes, the House intelligence chairman, have accused Obama administration officials of improperly requesting the unmasking of Trump campaign associates.
|
|
When Power was questioned last summer, she gave congressional investigators an unsettling answer: She claimed that she did not specifically request many of the unmaskings and that other government officials must have used her name as a justification.
|
|
Multiple congressional investigations continue to pursue how and why those unmaskings occurred, and whether any led to damaging leaks such as the January 2017 publication of secret intercepts between Russia's ambassador and then-Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn.
|
|
The final unmaskings you see on TV are carefully crafted via judicious editing, as many of the audience members looking on in shock and surprise weren't even present when the singers finally emerged from beneath their elaborate costume heads.
|
|
Nunes, in a rare public statement about the Russia probe and his work on the House intelligence committee tweeted at the time, "Seeing a lot of fake news from media elites and others who have no interest in violations of Americans' civil liberties via unmaskings."
|
|
For example, former U.N. Ambassador Samantha PowerSamantha Jane PowerWe've lost sight of the real scandal Congress should defy Dan Coats' last request on phone surveillance Sunday shows preview: Democratic candidates make the rounds after debate MORE or someone acting in her name requested unmaskings of Americans more than 260 times.
|
|
In a briefing with reporters, Alex Joel, the office's chief civil liberties officer, cautioned against reading too much into statistical fluctuations, but said that one factor in the surge of unmaskings was that a handful of reports in 2018 contained numerous identifiers of Americans or American businesses that malicious hackers abroad had targeted.
|
|
Under President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump conversation with foreign leader part of complaint that led to standoff between intel chief, Congress: report Pelosi: Lewandowski should have been held in contempt 'right then and there' Trump to withdraw FEMA chief nominee: report MORE, the growth of large-scale unmasking continues apace, with 16,721 unmaskings in 85033, an increase of 7,000 from the year before.
|
|
Clapper's procedures expanded that circle of exempted officials to include "the senior deputies and senior advisors for these named principles," meaning, for instance, Obama's deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes could request congressional unmaskings on behalf of Rice, his boss, as could the deputies and senior advisers to Secretary of State John KerryJohn Forbes KerryA lesson of the Trump, Tlaib, Omar, Netanyahu affair Trump's winning weapon: Time The Memo: O'Rourke looks to hit reset button MORE and Defense Secretaries Ash Carter and Chuck HagelCharles (Chuck) Timothy HagelOvernight Defense: US, Russia tensions grow over nuclear arms | Highlights from Esper's Asia trip | Trump strikes neutral tone on Hong Kong protests | General orders ethics review of special forces Five takeaways from Pentagon chief's first major trip Esper given horse in Mongolia as US looks for new inroads against China MORE.
|
|
That month, attorney general Bill Barr appointed federal prosecutor John Bash to examine the unmaskings. Fox News primetime hosts declared the unmaskings a "domestic spying operation" for which the Obama administration was "exposed" in the "biggest abuse of power" in American history. The Bash inquiry closed months later with no findings of substantive wrongdoing.
|
|
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #43 (January 1986) During a failed assault on the Pit, the secret headquarters of G.I. Joe, Cobra Commander and Destro were separated from the main Cobra force by an explosion and presumed dead.G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #53 (November 1986) The two escaped and assumed civilian disguises to travel incognito. Cobra Commander was depicted as an average, physically fit Caucasian with a pony tail, large round green- spectacle sunglasses, and a long slender mustache. Although only a convenient disguise at the time, this civilian look would resurface on subsequent unmaskings.
|
|
This origin stands in contrast to the episode "Twenty Questions", where the Commander told an interviewing journalist that he was responsible for spearheading a mutiny at his military academy in his youth. In other episodes, aforementioned reactions to off-screen unmaskings or glimpses of the Commander's features are not in keeping with the inhumanly blue-skinned figure portrayed in the film. In light of Cobra's constant failures, Golobulus decides to put the Commander on trial and punishes him by forcing his further exposure to the spores; their effect begins to devolve him into a snake. He escapes with Joe member Roadblock, but Cobra Commander's "humanity" slips away as his body transforms.
|
|
The list includes then Vice President Joe Biden, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Obama's then-chief of staff Denis McDonough; in addition, Samantha Power, at the time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, appears on the unmasking records as having requested Flynn to be unmasked seven times. In May 2020, attorney general Bill Barr appointed U.S. attorney John Bash to examine unmaskings conducted by the Obama administration. The inquiry concluded in October 2020 with no findings of substantive wrongdoing.President Trump has claimed that the unmasking request was an act of espionage since the beginning of his presidency and has been emphatically hyping the probe as a potential October Surprise for the 2020 election.
|
|