PrairiePundit

 Epoch Times: 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 understan...

  John Solomon: Jake Sullivan was one of the most prolific users of Hillary Clinton's forbidden email server. Now he's Joe Biden's national security adviser. Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland previously had ties to Christopher Steele in the Russia scandal. White House domestic adviser Susan Rice once falsely declared the Benghazi terror attack was provoked by an anti-Muslim video and later wrote the famously curious did-it-by-the-books email in the Russia scandal during her last minutes in he Obama administration. And top Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement official Melissa Hodgman is married to Peter Strzok, the fired FBI agent who supervised the discredited Crossfire Hurricane probe into Russia-Trump collusion. As Biden fills out his team, the list of people tied to past scandals and controversy keeps getting bigger And the pattern has some prominent Republicans taking note. "If you look at the larger picture, the Russia hoaxers, the people that w...

Chris Farrell: In the last week, Judicial Watch released eighty new pages of documents relating to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in which Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The new release shows top Obama White House officials scrambling to “evolve” their false claims that the attack began “spontaneously” in response to an anti-Muslim YouTube video. This was part of a coordinated campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.” The Benghazi lie was pushed heavily by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who was dispatched to five Sunday morning political talk shows to peddle the YouTube video falsehood. Meanwhile, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes, then-NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor, and then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan were joking about how clever they had sol...

The Hill: Susan Rice sees stock rise in Biden VP race Rice comes across as the designated liar for the Obama-Biden administration when they had to deal with major screw-ups of policy.

Fox News: The Federalist senior editor and Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway told "Life, Liberty & Levin" Sunday that an email written by former National Security Adviser Susan Rice on the day President Trump was inaugurated reveals an Obama administration effort to "sideline" officials who may have had concerns about the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign. Host Mark Levin asked Hemingway about the idea that Rice raced back to the White House just after noon on Inauguration Day to send a "self-serving" email regarding a Jan. 5 Oval Office meeting where the investigation of her designated successor, Michael Flynn, apparently was discussed. According to Levin, Rice wrote in the email that Obama "stress[ed] his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities by the book." Hemingway said the word "continued" suggested that Obama knew...

Fox News: Susan Rice claims Trump 'can't stomach strong black women' after confrontation with reporter This is typical of the bogus claims of racism made by those on the left.  In watching the briefing, I thought Trump was just a tough if not tougher with CNN reporters including Acosta who appears to be a white male.  The left has attempted to weaponize racism allegations and it has made the term just another slur with which to attack political opponents rather than a logical argument.

Washington Examiner: A  female student is suspected of physically assaulting College Republicans president John Rice-Cameron, the son of former U.S national security adviser under President Barack Obama, Susan Rice, according to a report. Although it could not be confirmed, the  Stanford Daily reported  that the call to police came from Rice-Cameron, who was said to have been running a “Change My Mind” stand on campus at Stanford University Tuesday. The alleged victim, a male student, said that the suspect shoved him in the chest with her hand while he was helping monitor a stand that invited students to change the College Republican members’ minds on their belief that Justice Brett Kavanaugh is innocent of sexual assault allegations until proven guilty. “At the request of the victim, the suspect was placed under a Private Person Arrest by the Deputies and issued a citation,” Bill Larson, the public information officer with Stanford University’s Department of Pub...

Washington Examiner: President Trump is considering revoking the security clearances of several former intelligence and national security officials who have been critical of his administration, the White House said Monday. "Not only is the president looking to take away [Former CIA Director John] Brennan's security clearance, he's also looking into the clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice and McCabe," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters. ... The White House accused those individuals of having "politicized and monetized" their access to U.S. intelligence and national security secrets. "As of right now, we are exploring the mechanism on those specific names," Sanders said. Sanders rejected the idea that Trump was considering the move as a way to punish his political enemies, and said the issue was how people with a security clearance were abusing that privilege. ... Some of these people appeared to have abused the privilege...

Victor Davis Hanson: The Distortions of Our Unelected Officials ... If there is such a thing as a dangerous “deep state” of elite but unelected federal officials who feel that they are untouchable and unaccountable, then John Brennan is the poster boy. ... Brennan claimed that intelligence agencies had not missed clear indications in 2009 that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called “underwear bomber,” would try to take down a U.S. airliner. Just days later when his denials were ridiculed, Brennan flipped and blasted intelligence agencies for their laxity. In 2011, Brennan falsely alleged that the Obama administration’s drone program had not caused a single civilian death in Pakistan over the previous year. In truth, around 50 civilians had been killed by drones since the 9/11 attacks. The same year, Brennan offered various versions of the American killing of Osama bin Laden. His misleading narratives required White House revisions. In March 2014, Brennan denied accusatio...

Sharyl Attkisson: ... “From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” writes Rice. The next part of the email is classified. Yet, taken by itself, Rice appears to be saying that Obama suggested the outgoing administration withhold information from the lawfully elected incoming administration — for national security reasons. Could that mean they were devising rationales to keep Trump officials from learning about the controversial surveillance practices they had used against Trump associates? It’s unclear why Rice would have decided to record her version of events weeks later, in an email to herself, moments after Trump became president. Republican Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Rice’s attorney yesterday asking for an explanation of the “...

streiff: ... But not now . Susan Rice is no longer expected to visit Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a meeting with the House committee probing allegations she “unmasked” President Trump associates in Russian meddling probes. Rice had been expected to face tough questions on her role in the matter while serving as then-President Barack Obama’s national security adviser. Trump alleges Rice may have committed a crime by asking government analysts to disclose the names of his associates documented in intelligence reports. … Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan last week told Fox News that he wants Rice to answer the basic question: “Did you unmask the names and if so why? (Answer for Rep. Jordan, she unmasked Trump staffers for the same reason a dog licks its crotch — because it can.) This is not unexpected. She’s recently been hinting that racism and sexism are the reasons , not the fact that she was National Security Adviser (btw, anyone who has qualms about Jared and Ivanka advising the ...

Fox News: 'WHY ME?': Susan Rice links race and gender to ‘unmasking’ backlash I find it disgusting that she would even think such a thing.  I have no empathy for someone playing the victim after they take actions that look like a real abuse of power and an unconstitutional invasion of American's privacy for political purposes.

Washington Times: House intelligence committee sources say career officials at the National Security Council are slow-walking the delivery of subpoenaed records on former National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice ’s handling of classified information and the “unmasking” of Trump campaign workers — material from the Russian hacking probe that middle-level NSC managers claim was transferred to President Obama’s library and could “remain closed to the public for five years.” One source, speaking only on the condition of anonymity, called the transfer curious and appeared to reflect an effort by former administration officials to obscure evidence on whether Ms. Rice and other top officials in the Obama White House illegally tried to identify which Trump campaign and transition aides had been caught up in the U.S. intelligence intercepts of Russian interference in the presidential race. The two high-level intelligence committee sources told The Washington Times that they are confident ...

Judicial Watch: Judicial Watch today announced that the National Security Council (NSC) on May 23, 2017, informed it by letter that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” have been removed to the Obama Library. The NSC will not fulfill an April 4 Judicial Watch request for records regarding information relating to people “who were identified pursuant to intelligence collection activities.” The agency also informed Judicial Watch that it would not turn over communications with any Intelligence Community member or agency concerning the alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election; the hacking of DNC computers; or the suspected communications between Russia and Trump campaign/transition officials. Specifically, the NSC told Judicial Watch: Documents from the Obama administration have been transferred to the Barack...

Daily Mail: Obama's team 'asked for NSA secrets on more than 30,000 Americans in 2016 and circulated 6,000 intelligence reports WITHOUT removing their names' Officials searched for the names of 30,355 Americans in comms metadata That data includes only information such as email addresses and phone numbers But they also searched for 5,288 Americans within the communications  Reports were then passed around government depts with their names visible Legally, NSA gathers only data on foreigners using US infrastructure, it claims But critics say that it pulls in much more info - including that of US citizens This seems to go to the actions of people like Susan Rice who unmasked US citizens who had contacts with foreigners while working on the Trump campaign.

Jay Caruso: Guess What? The Obama Administration’s Claim That Syria Didn’t Have Chemical Weapons Was A Lie ... As Keeley said, it doesn’t matter if the Obama administration knew about a particular stockpile, they knew Syria had them. As Mark Hemingway points out over at The Weekly Standard , that must be news to John Kerry and Susan Rice: Now recall that John Kerry bragged on Charlie Rose in 2014 about the Obama administration cutting an historic deal that removed “ 100 percent of the declared chemical weapons ” from Syria. I don’t know how much of a caveat the word “declared” constitutes, but as recently as January former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice was confidently announcing that the Obama administration had removed chemical weapons from Syria . Oops. I think they did it because they did not want to have to deal with the consequences of a failed policy and having to confront Syria and Russia about going back on their pledge to get rid of the WMD.  Susa...

David Harsanyi: .. Why did you lie to PBS about having no knowledge of the unmasking of Trump officials or family? ... So, Ambassador Rice, did you request that the identities of Trump campaign officials, transition team members, or family members be unmasked? Is it normal for high-level officials to request for names of political players to be unmasked in raw intelligence? ... Is it really the "routine work" of top national security officials to proactively collect information on incoming officials of the opposition political party? Sounds like a bad idea. Is this something Rhodes endorses for Trump officials as well? Is it OK to share this information with chief White House strategist Steve Bannon? ... Which individual in government initially provided you with the raw intelligence reports containing the masked Trump team identities? Which Trump team members did you specifically ask to be unmasked? And why did you ask for their identities to be unmasked? In wha...

streiff: When “Unmasking” Becomes The Rule Rather Than The Exception Over at Circa, there is a piece that is a must-read if you are interested in understanding the debate over “unmasking” the identities of US persons caught up in NSA surveillance. These might be persons who were “incidentally” captured during surveillance of a foreign target or they could be American citizens whose names are mentioned in a communication between an intelligence target and another person. ... They apparently first used it to attack opponents of Obama's terrible deal with Iran and then continued to use it against the Trump campaign, using Russia as an excuse.  It seems clear that Susan rice did not do this on her own.  She was acting on behalf of President Obama to attack his political opponents. For those on the left who are defending this conduct, they should be asked whether they would have any problem with the Trump administration doing it to its political opponents.

NY Times: Trump Says Rice Committed Crime, Citing No Evidence I believe that if Trump were doing the same thing Rice did, the Times would consider it a crime.  It is also curious that the media does not include the same caveat, "Citing No Evidence," when describing Democrats' contention that the Russians actually effected the 2016 election.

T. Becket Adams: Never tell a crowd of curious onlookers, "There's nothing to see here." Those five words frequently turn idle curiosity into genuine concern, and the speaker is often viewed quickly with distrust. We're seeing that play out in real-time this week, as a few media personalities have downplayed reports that former national security adviser Susan Rice personally requested that the identities of "masked" Americans in U.S. intelligence reports linked to President Trump's transition team and campaign be "unmasked." Rice's alleged involvement in the "unmasking" was reported Monday by Bloomberg. She also reportedly ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to produce "detailed spreadsheets" of phone calls made by Trump and his associates during the election, the Daily Caller reported, citing former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova. Those articles came not too long after Rice said unequivocally in March that she...