LZ: Steps reportedly taken by former National Security Adviser Susan Rice to “unmask” names of associates of President Donald Trump before he took office could put her in legal jeopardy, according to legal and national security experts.
Bloomberg on Monday cited two unnamed sources who said Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, discovered in February that Rice made multiple requests to learn the names of Americans whose names had been disguised in surveillance reports related to Trump’s transition.
The U.S. officials who spoke to Bloomberg in exchange for anonymity said the reports contained summaries of conversations among foreign targets discussing the incoming Trump administration and, in some cases, conversations between Trump transition members and foreign officials. The intelligence reports contained “valuable political information,” a source told Bloomberg.
Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova told LifeZette that the reports of Rice’s activity, if true, likely would constitute a crime. He said he has spoken to sources who indicate three other members of the administration of former President Barack Obama also participated in unmasking.
“This is pretty clear,” said diGenova, who was the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia under Ronald Reagan. “They thought they were never going to get caught … Ms. Rice needs a lawyer. And she needs a good one.”
I wondered all along who in the Obama Administration would be chosen to take the fall. Now we know.
What will it take to fully prosecute this LIAR? Are there any republicans with the cajones? She is afterall a black woman and republicans seem to fear anything black. 😡
” Are there any republicans with the cajones? ”
To date, no.
Unless and until someone is convicted of a felony I consider this just more taunting of patriots.
— two unnamed sources–
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Remember, don’t believe “sources said” by the VERY dishonest media. If they don’t name the sources, the sources don’t exist.
8:50 AM · Sep 30, 2016
Trump knew as early as last fall he was being spied on. And “the leaks are real, the news is false”
I’ll give it up after this, lol. But you all need to stop and try thinking like Trump, he has always projected what he is doing. Rice can’t unmaske people, she can only leak who others have unmasked. This whole narrative is trap, save the celebration for the real deal.
Maybe Obama’s shadow government can grant Rice a pre-emptive pardon.
She should hire Obozo as her lawyer, he can try defending himself while he’s at it.
Nothing will come of this.
NOTHING.
Ms. Rice will never see the inside of a jail.
I guarantee it.
We will now get an illuminating lesson in politics – but few will understand.
The posturing will be impressive. The oratory, stirring. The cries of Constitutional “crises” deafening. “What’s important is that this NEVER happens again!” will be the cry of the hand-wringing do-nothings.
Treason is now a misdemeanor.
“The mountains will quake; and give birth to a mouse.”
izlamo delenda est …
Apparent from day one why they want so badly to have Donald replaced with Hillary so pardons could be granted!
Eric Holder would be a good attorney for Rice, he has no integrity, honor and is another Obama elitist who is above the law.
Awe c’mon now! We all know she DINTDOONUFFIN!
Remember that the fall guy has to be fairly important in order to be believable, but that the loss of the fall guy has to be less painful than the loss of the person(s) actually guilty.
So…who’s more important than Rice and was in a position to order the unmasking?
I can just picture her in front of congress and the righteously indignant trey gowdy. I don’t remember, I don’t remember, I don’t remember, I plead the 5th, I plead the 5th. No further questions, I guess we gave it our best shot.
She’s a negro woman. She has a get out of jail free card!
Wouldn’t it be great if she turned states evidence in exchange for immunity?! (Stranger things have happened.)
Rice-a-Cronie!!!
Call up a Federal grand jury.
No more kabuki theater congressional hearings that result in nothing but sound bites and pleading the 5th.
It’s a shame she can’t count on help from so many high-profile, famous Democrat lawyers who are all banned from practice: Bubba, Mooch, Hillary….
The evidence appears to be there. And more evidence is uncovered hourly. The only way justice will be served is for the Department of Justice to charge her and put her in a real court room. If this ends up in front of TV cameras and before congress it’ll be the same old performing monkeys.
She does need a good Lawer.
Don’t get your hopes up. In all of the investigations throughout my 56 years, there has not been even one conviction of a high ranked politician who was corrupt. Ever.
We need signs put up all around the DC beltway. “Laws made here for external use only”.
She is teflon coated, just like all of the other members of the obama regime.
The eunuchs of congress are keystone cops in a Chinese fire drill.
@JMV, does that include non-elected asst secretaries and appointees?
Her choices appear to be death if she talks or prison if she does not. How about conspiracy charges?
She’s admitted that she ordered the unmasking but that she did so for National Security Reasons. That was part of her job and a judgement call. As such, if there is no paper or electronic trail of her being ordered to unmask or discussions with others of unmasking with the data getting into specific political hands in order to leak it she could get away with it by just sticking to her guns that it was part of her job. Gregg Jarret has a good opinion piece up on foxnews about it. Having said that, it would be a very fine line she would have to tread and sitting in front of a hostile Senate committee (the Dems on the committee can’t be seen as too defensive of her) under oath makes it tricky.
She’ll get by with the ‘no intent’ clause.
As my mother used to (and still does) say: “We shall see what we shall see.”
It’s way too early to speculate about the ending of all this. With Gorsuch’s nomination vote, Sessions’ #2 will probably also be installed. He’s the one who will probably be in charge of this investigation out of the DoJ. We’re not dealing with Holder, Lynch or Yates, now.
During the 2016 election, I had many friends who groaned about not liking either candidate and considered not even voting. My response was this: There is no statistical chance anyone except one of these two will be president. If you think neither of them should be president, then vote for the one who can most easily be removed from office. Would that be the historic first female president ever, or the old, rich white guy?
This “Unmaskgate” will be another Kobayashi Maru for the Republicans. They will come out with an indictment of Rice or with their political careers intact– not both. The face that Rice is both female and a minority will make an indictment difficult, and a conviction near impossible.
But will her husband recuse his network from covering the story?
I admit to being pretty sanguine about the (r)s finding the balls and integrity to do anything about Rice. We can be dead certain that the vaunted “fourth estate”, bereft of ethics, integrity, courage, competence and patriotism, not to mention the embedded bureaucrats, will only provide her cover. But the beautiful irony of all this is that, despite their obvious corruption and manifest treasons, the vile scumsuckers still couldn’t come up with anything they could use other than something to point at while shrieking “Look!! Squirrel!”. May they all be forced to live, covered in rotten garbage, in figurative stocks for the rest of their worthless lives!
In a just world, barry would be her attorney, and both wind up behind bars.