Rep. Devin Nunes called for Obama administration officials who received information in response to “unmasking” requests concerning Trump transition team members beyond retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to be revealed to the public.
After the unveiling of a declassified memo on Wednesday, showing how information about Flynn was widely disseminated across the government between the 2016 election and President Trump’s inauguration, Nunes said this is only a “glimpse” of what he has seen.
“It’s even worse than this. I mean, you’re only seeing the folks that unmasked Gen. Flynn. The reality is there were a whole lot of other Americans on the Trump transition team that were unmasked, and those need to be made public also,” the California Republican told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs.
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.
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.
This is a controversy about which Nunes has raised the alarm since the spring of 2017. When he was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, the congressman revealed he reviewed “dozens of reports” from the U.S. intelligence community about the legal surveillance of Trump team members.
Nunes agreed to step aside from the panel’s investigation into Russian election interference after facing allegations of mishandling classified information. The matter was scrutinized by the House Ethics Committee, which cleared the congressman of wrongdoing in December 2017.
U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is conducting a criminal investigation into origins of the Trump-Russia inquiry, is scrutinizing the Flynn unmaskings and subsequent leaks as part of his review.
Nunes has said Republicans are also investigating leaks related to the federal Russia investigation, and he plans to send criminal referrals to the Justice Department beyond the eight he sent last year.
