Senate Republicans want access to recently declassified documents on the “unmasking” of retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and others during the final weeks of the Obama administration.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, requested the information in a Tuesday night letter to acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and Attorney General William Barr.
“It is our understanding that you conducted a classification review and declassified information related to numerous requests to ‘unmask’ the names of U.S. persons who appeared in certain intelligence reporting around the time of the 2016 election through January 2017. We wholeheartedly agree that transparency is needed more now than ever,” Johnson and Grassley said. “We respectfully request that you make available to us, as soon as possible, all information regarding the ‘unmasking’ of U.S. persons requested by members of President Obama’s administration around the time of the 2016 election through January 2017.”
The two senators praised the recent efforts by Grenell and Barr to declassify reams of information related to the Russia investigation. They include dozens of footnotes from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s December report (which revealed the FBI was aware that British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s salacious and flawed dossier may have been compromised by Russian disinformation), witness transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Russian interference (which showed that top Obama national security officials did not have direct evidence of Trump-Russia collusion), and information related to the prosecution of Flynn (which led the Justice Department to file to dismiss the charges against him).
“One of the most significant unanswered questions about what occurred during the 2016 election is how many Americans were unmasked, at whose request, and for what purpose,” the senators said, adding that they “firmly believe that the best way to resolve these issues is to determine the truth, and to make clear to the American people what did and did not occur.”
Grenell, who took over as acting director of national intelligence in late February as he concurrently serves as the ambassador to Germany, has been working to declassify information connected to the government’s Trump-Russia investigations. The spy chief visited the Justice Department last week and brought the list along with him. The declassified list likely includes the names of officials involved in other unmaskings near the end of Obama’s second term, from Election Day through Trump’s inauguration.
Flynn’s name was repeatedly leaked to multiple media outlets in 2017, along with classified details of government-monitored calls he had with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Timothy Shea moved to drop the criminal charges against Flynn on Thursday. Concealed documents were dug up and released in recent weeks thanks to a review by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen, who was appointed to the task by Barr.
DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Martha MacCallum of Fox News on Tuesday that U.S. Attorney John Durham would use any of the relevant revelations about unmasking in his investigation of the Trump-Russia investigators. She added that the ultimate decision for releasing the declassified unmasking documents would be up to Grenell, not Barr.
“ODNI is the agency that declassified this document. They are the owner of this document. So, if they want to release it, they are free to do so,” Kupec said. “But it’s not ours to release it. So we have no plans to release it at this time. But certainly, if ODNI makes that decision, that choice is theirs.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham also told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would like to see the unmasking information made public.
“The question for us as a Congress is: Did the Obama administration use unmasking as a political weapon? That’s the question that I want to answer,” Graham said. “I would urge Ric Grenell, who has done a terrific job, to release the names of the people who made the unmasking request.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Fox News at Night with Shannon Bream that Barr and Grenell would likely negotiate how to make this information public.
“You’re going to have Attorney General Barr and Ric Grenell work this out and decide how to approach this,” the Tennessee Republican said. “People do want to know what happened and who decided to do this unmasking and who all was unmasked.”
Republicans have alleged since 2017 that Obama-era officials improperly unmasked associates of then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the Russia investigation. Democrats have defended the intelligence-gathering process, arguing that the collection of identifying information is inevitable.
Unmasking occurs when U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdropping on foreigners sweep up communications with U.S. citizens in what is known as incidental collection. When the intelligence reporting is shared across the government, names of U.S. citizens are typically concealed or masked to protect their identities. The names can be unmasked, however, if U.S. officials make the request.
Then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said in 2017 he found evidence “that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information.”
“Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports,” Nunes said.
Rep. Adam Schiff, who has since become chairman of the intelligence panel, countered that “some incidental collection is unavoidable, and, as long as proper procedures are being followed, it is fully lawful” and that “it does not constitute either wiretapping or surveillance of Americans.”
“When it is necessary to unmask a name to understand the significance of the communication, there is a process for doing so, which is also lawful,” the California Democrat added.
Former FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that the National Security Agency, the CIA, the FBI, and the Justice Department all had the ability to unmask individuals.
Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper were pressed by GOP senators in 2017 about their role in alleged unmasking abuses and denied any wrongdoing. There were reports that United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power unmasked hundreds of U.S. persons, but she has said this is “absolutely false.”
Earlier this month, Grenell made his concerns about unmasking clear in a directive obtained by the Washington Examiner to the heads of U.S. spy agencies titled “Protecting the Privacy and Civil Liberties of U.S. Persons.”
