Opening up a new probe into the Obama administration’s “unmasking” of Trump campaign officials, 69-year-old William Barr aims to get to the bottom of why government officials reviewed secret recordings of foreign officials. While the government, under the Patriot Act, is given broad discretion to wiretap foreign officials on American soil, it’s a different ballgame when it comes to “unmasking” the other side of the conversation. Unless there’s ample probable cause, unmasking biases the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] court to obtain court-ordered warrants to wiretap individuals suspected of improper behavior. Barr appointed U.S. Atty. Jeff Bash from the Western District of Texas to conduct the investigation into why Obama administration officials sought to unmask conversations of Trump campaign officials talking with foreign actors.
Barr’s decision to tap another U.S. attorney to look into specifically unmasking stems from recent declassified documents for the Senate Intelligence Committee naming a far larger group of former Obama White House officials that put in unmasking requests. “The attorney general determined that certain aspects of unmasking need to be reviewed separately as a support to John Durham’s investigation,” Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said, announcing Bash had been tapped to conduct the probe by Barr. Republicans senators released a list of 39 former Obama White House officials that asked for intelligence reports about 62-year-old Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, 73-year-old President Donald Trump’s appointee for National Security Adviser. It was no surprise that former FBI Director James Comey requested the unmasking on numerous occasions, consistent with his counterintelligence investigation.
What surprised Republican senators were unmaksing requests by former Vice President Joe Biden, former CIA Director John Brennen and many other less known Obama officials. Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice admitted to the House Intelligence Committee Sept. 13, 2017 that she unmasked several Trump campaign officials. But Biden has denied knowing anything about White House or FBI investigations into the 2016 Trump campaign. Biden recently admitted May 12 to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he attended a Jan. 5, 2017 Oval Office meeting that discussed the FBI’s probe into Flynn. Biden first denied knowing anything about it until Stephanopoulos reminded him he was at the Oval Office meeting. Barr wants to know whether or not the White House was unmasking Trump campaign officials to undermine his presidential campaign.
Kupec admitted that unmasking requests are fairly routine but, taken together with Comey’s potentially illegal couterintelligence investigation into Trump campaign officials, it’s a big deal. Durham has been examining whether Comey’s counterintelligence investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign and Flynn were illegally predicated, based exclusively on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s paid opposition research AKA “the Steele Dossier,” a baseless set of allegations about Trump’ Russian ties. Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent 22-months and $40 million investigation Trump’s alleged Russian ties, concluding March 23, 2019 in his 484-page Final Report that there were no ties. Barr has a problem with Comey opening up and investigation and seeking warrants from the FISA Court predicated on rubbish, presented to the FISA Court as probable cause to wiretap Trump officials.
Barr wants to find out whether the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Trump 2016 presidential campaign was designed to give Hillary and unfair advantage heading into the Nov. 4 presidential election. Hillary hit Trump in the final presidential debate in Las Vegas Oct. 19, 2916 with allegations that he was a “Putin puppet,” essentially a Russian asset. Trump, of course, denied the charges and went on to beat Hillary Nov. 4, 2016. When Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz delivered his IG report Dec. 11, 2019, he said he could find evidence of political motives at the FBI, something Barr and Durham strongly disagree with. Barr hopes by appointing John Bash he can prove that DOJ, FBI and National Security Agency [NSA] officials were indeed politically biased against Trump, looking for any way possible to help Hillary win the 2016 presidential election.
Kupec said the Bash will look into unmasking requests before and after the Nov. 4, 2016 presidential election. Finding out who and the frequency of unmasking requests should shed some light on how the FBI counterintelligence investigation morphed into a dirty trick to undermine Trump’s election chances. Declassified emails exchanged between former FBI Agent Peter Stzrok and his lover FBI Atty. Lisa Page showed an undeniable bias against Trump. “The frequency, who was unmasking whom, all of the circumstances and events can she light and give us a better understanding of what happened with respect to President [Donald] Trump,” Kupec said. Sen. Chuck Grassely (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grinell for unmasking records between Jan 2015 and Jan. 2017, concerned that unmasking started before the FBI’s probe.
