Grenell declassifies names of Obama officials who ‘unmasked’ Flynn, report says
Obama says Flynn got off ‘scot-free,’ worries about rule of law
Is that all the former president is worried about? Former federal prosecutor Doug Burns reacts.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell has decided to declassify information about Obama administration officials who were behind the “unmasking” of Michael Flynn and could soon release their names.
The Wall Street Journal, citing a senior government official, called the possibility of Grenell releasing the list of names an unprecedented move made just days after the Justice Department dropped its case against Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser.
DURHAM MOVING FULL-THROTTLE ON RUSSIA PROBE REVIEW
Officials in the Obama administration do not hide that they unmasked some Americans in these intelligence reports, but insisted that their reasons were legitimate. Susan Rice, Obama’s former national security adviser, said she unmasked the identities of Trump officials during the transition, according to ABC News. She has denied leaking their identities or being politically motivated.
An official told ABC News that Grenell visited the Justice Department at some point last week and had the list with him. The move coincided with the department’s stunning reversal in the Flynn case, which was previously seen as special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s signature case from the Russian collusion investigation.
The decision to drop the case was made even though prosecutors, for the past three years, have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Recent documents released in the case included handwritten notes in which FBI officials questioned what the purpose of interviewing Flynn. «What is our goal?» one of the notes read. «Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?»
In court documents filed last week, the Justice Department said that after reviewing newly disclosed information and other materials, it agreed with Flynn’s lawyers that his Jan. 24, 2017 interview with the FBI should never have taken place because he had not had inappropriate contacts with Russians. The interview, the department said, was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis.”
Sidney Powell, one of Flynn’s lawyers, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” that FBI agents did their best to hide their investigation and attempted to entrap Flynn. She mentioned a meeting on Jan. 5, 2017 at the White House that included Obama, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan.
Powell said the “whole thing was orchestrated and set up within the FBI, Clapper, Brennan and in the Oval Office meeting that day with President Obama,” she told Maria Bartiromo, the anchor.
Bartiromo asked Powell if she believed the scandal reached up to Obama, and Powell responded, “Absolutely.”
Trump later tweeted, “OBAMAGATE,” indicating that he believes that Obama worked to undermine his presidency.
When asked by a reporter in the Rose Garden what crime he is accusing Obama of committing, Trump responded: “Obamagate, it’s been going on for a long time, it’s been going on from before I got elected, and it’s a disgrace that it happened. You look at now all of this information that’s being released and from what I understand that’s only the beginning.”
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips and the Associated Press contributed to this report
