Intelligence agencies are supplying the House Intelligence Committee with information about unmasking requests made by three former Obama administration officials, a spokesman for the committee chairman told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
In late May, Chairman Devin Nunes issued subpoenas to the CIA, FBI, and NSA for details about any unmasking requests made by former national security adviser Susan Rice, former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, and former CIA director John Brennan in 2016 and January 2017.
“We have received information in response to the subpoenas and we’re expecting to receive further information,” a Nunes spokesman told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
Unmasking is the process of revealing an American’s name in an intelligence report. Intelligence officials are required to follow strict procedures to protect U.S. person information swept up during foreign intelligence collection, but can unmask an identity under certain circumstances.
Nunes and other Republicans on the panel have expressed concern about politically motivated surveillance abuses and leaks, especially as they relate to the Trump administration. The California congressman said in early June that requests to reveal Americans’ identities under the Obama administration “became excessive.”
“Clearly this is just further escalation in the concern we have of the unmaskings of Americans by the senior leaders of the Obama administration,” Nunes said. “Americans that didn’t know about it, and, of course, potentially Trump transition officials.”
Rice denied making improper unmasking requests in April. She said that it was “not uncommon” for her and others to request unmaskings when necessary.
“The allegation is that somehow, Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes,” Rice said. “That is absolutely false.”
Responses to committee requests for unmasking information has “varied,” New York congressman Pete King, a member of the panel, told TWS.
“It sort-of varies,” he said. “Some cooperative, some not.”
Nunes suggested the potential for surveillance abuses in March, when he claimed that Trump transition team members had been unmasked and details about them, “with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value,” had been disseminated in intelligence reports. That surveillance was not related to Russia, he said.
Those remarks ignited a rush of controversy, including about how the chairman obtained that information. Nunes ultimately stepped aside from the Russia probe.
Texas congressman Mike Conaway, who took over, told reporters last week that Nunes’s unmasking oversight is separate from the Russia investigation.
“There is a whole separate issue as to the propriety of unmasking in general. To the extent it relates specifically to Russia, then that is my responsibility,” he said. “But the overall issue of how things get unmasked … that’s a broader, committee-wide responsibility which is Devin’s in its entirety.”
Conaway said that includes “the mechanics of the unmasking process.”
“Is there an audit trail, and all the things associated with who gets to unmask, who get to approve, all that kind of stuff, that’s way beyond Russia,” he said, and stressed that Nunes had not interfered with the Russia probe “in any way whatsoever.”
“With respect to the Russia issue, he’s left me totally alone and let me do it exactly how I see fit,” he said.
The panel also sent a letter to the NSA, CIA, and FBI on March 15 requesting the names of any unmasked U.S. persons related to the Trump or Clinton campaigns whose identities were disseminated from June 2016 to January 2017. The committee asked for the names of agencies or officials that requested or authorized the unmasking and dissemination of that information.
