Joe Biden and Susan Rice (Credit: Corbis/Getty Images)
“As Joe Biden constructs his new administration, individuals from the Obama administration are quietly resurfacing in positions of power. Some of these people are well known, others lesser so. But they all played critical roles at various times during the Obama administration.
Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser and now the “top adviser to the president on domestic policy and related decisions,” has admitted to participating in the unmasking of members of the Trump transition team. Unmasking is the process whereby a U.S. citizen’s identity is revealed from collected surveillance.
Initially, Rice publicly denied the allegations, claiming that “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.” Two weeks later Rice stated that she had not done so for “for any political purposes.” It was later reported that Rice told House investigators that “she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York.”
Rice was also a participant in an early January 2017 meeting with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates where President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak was discussed.
According to a filing in the Flynn legal case, notes from FBI Agent Peter Strzok revealed that “former President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and apparently Susan Rice discussed the transcripts of Flynn’s calls and how to proceed against him. Mr. Obama himself directed that ‘the right people’ investigate General Flynn.” According to Strzok’s notes, it also appears that “Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act” that would initially be used to pursue Flynn.
Rice, whose level of participation in the spying on the Trump 2016 campaign is still not fully known, sent herself an email on Obama’s last day in office detailing events that took place during this meeting. In addition to Flynn, Rice also noted that Obama asked his team to be “mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully [with the incoming Trump team] as it relates to Russia.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 3/08/2021) (Archive)