Today officials authorize today know. Trump supporters complaining about the source of leaks rather than the substance of the leak, jim sciutto. Reporter a source close to ambassador susan rice tells me the claims she improperly unmasked u. S. Citizens caught up in surveillance is in a word false coming from ambassador rice, but ive also spoken to Senior Intelligence officials from democratic and republican administrations to ask them about the process of unmasking. Is it unusual, illegal . And the answer is usually no, not unusual, not illegal. They say a couple of things, one the law allows it, two for it to happen the official requests,
the Intelligence Community has to approve it, it is often times approved because that official wants to provide more information as they are reading Intelligence Report they want to know more about the significance, that is shared between the briefer. Its possible that official could do that him or herself but by nature of it it is only exchanged one
there are protocols specifically established after 9/11 to allow for unmasking under certain rules. thank you. susan rice was asked last month that trump officials were incidentally surveilled during the transition here is what she said. i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes today. that certainly speaks to the credibility of susan rice as does the whole benghazi situation where she misled the american public with an internet video, she s going to have to speak to why she was surprised and the exact question was what? unintentional surveillance of trump transition officials. it was very direct and very spot on this subject. not about the obama administration wiretapping?
correct. also, why did she ask for the unmasking? was it in the interest of national security or purely politics. or maybe she wanted to make people aware of how serious it was. we just don t know. the web of connections between the president and russia seems p to be spreading. the founder of black water firm eric prince, a meeting took place on the indian ocean, sources say the meeting was to set up a back channel line of communication between the kremlin or president-elect trump, or at least an attempt. eric prince was not part of the transition, but has ties to
examine changes made under the previous administration? i think it s fair to say changes are being done across the government. that s they re agenda. welcome back. congrats to the tar heels. 4:31 eastern time. the constant drip, drip, drip between trump administration and russian associates. now the president doing his best to make unmasking sound illegal fighting off a barrage of tweets seemed at cooking up a scandal to distract from what might be a real one. all this began with a fox news report that a high ranking obama official requested the unmu unmasking of those caught in surveillance. naming president obama s national security adviser susan rice as the official requesting the unmasking, what are we
the intelligence community has to approve it, it is often times approved because that official wants to provide more information as they are reading intelligence report they want to know more about the significance, that is shared between the briefer. it s possible that official could do that him or herself but by nature of it it is only exchanged one to one. there are open questions how extensive was the unmasking, what was the source, but this practice is not unusual, it happens, and two, it certainly is not illegal. there are protocols for the unmasking under certain rules. thanks to jim sciutto. we have to apologize we used