Sen. Rand Paul believes corruption inside former President Barack Obama’s intelligence community rises to the level of conspiracy after a memo revealing unmasking requests raised questions about abuse of government power.
The Kentucky Republican joined Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Wednesday and criticized Obama officials, including former Vice President Joe Biden, for requesting the unmasking of former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in the weeks before President Trump took office.
“This was a conspiracy,” Paul said. “The question is, did President Obama direct it all or did Vice President Biden? Now, we now know for a fact that Vice President Biden was involved, and he needs to be questioned on this because we can’t elevate someone to the presidency who’s willing to use the intelligence community to spy on his political opponents. That should be a deal killer.”
Paul accused the Obama administration of using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and other “secret courts” to spy on U.S. citizens.
“I think this is astonishing that Vice President Biden and really, all of President Obama’s inner circle individually were requesting the unmasking of a political opponent,” Paul said. “There was a whole to-do about trying to impeach a president, saying they were using the power of government to go after a political opponent. This is a … smoking gun if there ever was one. That Vice President Biden was using the power of government, abusing that power to go after a political opponent. Essentially, unmasking someone is the equivalent of illegally wiretapping them.”
Paul accused Obama and his administrative officials of “ill-begotten motives” that propelled the investigation into Flynn after FBI agents had found “no derogatory information” on a December 2016 phone call between Flynn and Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.
“It’s illegal to listen to people’s private conversations. You can listen to, if you have a national security matter, a foreigner. But unless the foreigner is saying, ‘We’re going to blow up the Capitol, will you help me?’ you don’t get to listen to the other person’s conversation if they’re just talking. So, Gen. Flynn was never accused of saying anything untoward, never saying anything that was committing a crime but they all listened to his conversation, and then they all decided, ‘We’ve got to get this guy.'”
