Plowing straight ahead

I love this post by Victor Davis Hanson about Devin Nunes. Nunes is going ahead with subpoenas to Susan Rice, John Brennan, and Samantha Power. VDH understands why. Read more here.

This is the consequence you get when you "slow-roll"

Debra Heine reports at PJ Media,

In a recent broadcast of the John Batchelor Show, Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) of the House Select Intelligence Committee confirmed that all three subpoenas his committee sent to senior Obama administration officials seek details about the unmaskings of American citizens. He also said that it was "very unusual" for an ambassador like Samantha Power to unmask names of American citizens "under any circumstances." The chairman made clear that he and his colleagues would not be requesting the information if they didn’t have "probable cause that there was an abuse of power” and that his investigation into possible illegalities was just beginning.

“Oh, this is only the beginning," Nunes said. "There are many more officials that we have concerns about abusing the intelligence programs.”

Nunes joined Batchelor and Mary Kissel of The Wall Street Journal editorial board last Thursday to discuss the subpoenas sent to former CIA director John Brennan, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and former UN ambassador Samantha Power.

Via John Batchelor at The Daily Beast:

“The subpoenas,” Nunes explained, “actually went to the NSA, the CIA, and the FBI, requesting specifically, of those three individuals that were named, the unmaskings they have done, that they did, from the time period of 2016, the entire year, leading up to Jan. 20 of this year.”
Quickly Nunes focused on the politics of the unmaskings.

“I can’t get into why we chose those individuals, but clearly this is just further escalation in the concern we have of the unmaskings of Americans by the senior leaders of the Obama administration. Americans that didn’t know about it, and, of course, potentially Trump transition officials.”

Nunes clarified his concerns.

“Every American is masked. The intelligence agencies are bound by law to mask all American citizens that get picked up in foreign collection. What has to happen, if you want to find out who the American is—there’s a process and procedure in place for that. It’s actually very uncommon in most cases, and seldom happens. But the concern I have had, that I expressed publicly, quite publicly, actually, a couple months ago, was that it became excessive. That Obama administration officials were unmasking people in the Trump transition, and it made me quite uncomfortable.

...Asked if former FBI director James Comey has obstructed the investigation into the unmaskings, Nunes was blunt. “It’s unknown at this point. We will see whether or not the FBI produces the unmaskings that were done by these three individuals. If the FBI continues to not provide the information to Congress—or the NSA or CIA, for that matter—”

Nunes did not finish the thought.

The agencies have until Wednesday, June 7, 2017, to deliver the information requested by Nunes.

"Look, we want to work with the intelligence agencies," he said. "We didn’t want to have to subpoena, but the process was moving way too slowly. So we picked these three individuals whom we have a particular interest in, and hopefully, they [the agencies] are expedient. That they have till next week to give us the unmaskings that these three individuals have done. I think they know now that we are serious.”

Read more here.

Unmasking: "It is unlawful, unconstitutional, doesn't keep us safe, and will destroy our freedoms!"

Judge Napolitano:

Unmasking is the most serious threat to personal liberty and the stability of the country since the Civil War! It is unlawful, unconstitutional, doesn't keep us safe, and will destroy our freedoms!

It is now in the hands of Bob Mueller.

"Concentric circle political safety"

Sundance writes at The Conservative Treehouse,

With dozens of people with access to President Obama’s PDB, Rice’s unmasking of the intelligence report names gave dozens of people direct access to unmasked intelligence – including Obama officials who could, perhaps did, use the PDB for specific and intentional political purposes, as outlined by Evelyn Farkas who was one of the recipients of the unmasked intelligence.

If you know how concentric circle political safety is constructed, you will notice that Susan Rice is now hugging the security of the Presidency. No space. To take Rice down, means to take down President Obama – safe play on her part.

Reverse the safety. No-one in media or congress is going to allow President Obama to be taken down; ergo, everyone will protect Susan Rice. They have no choice.

Read the whole thing here.

Susan Rice made multiple requests to unmask members of the Trump staff

There is something new in the unmasking, leaking intel investigations. Eli Lake reports at Bloomberg,

White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The pattern of Rice's requests was discovered in a National Security Council review of the government's policy on "unmasking" the identities of individuals in the U.S. who are not targets of electronic eavesdropping, but whose communications are collected incidentally. Normally those names are redacted from summaries of monitored conversations and appear in reports as something like "U.S. Person One."

The National Security Council's senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice's multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel's office, who reviewed more of Rice's requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.

The intelligence reports were summaries of monitored conversations -- primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.

Rice did not respond to an email seeking comment on Monday morning. Her role in requesting the identities of Trump transition officials adds an important element to the dueling investigations surrounding the Trump White House since the president's inauguration.

Read more here.