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In the past few days, we’ve learned more about the case surrounding former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn than we have over the past three years, and every bit of what we’ve discovered thus far should scare the daylights out of all Americans.
But unfortunately, not all Americans are united on the fact that it was wrong — legally, constitutionally, and morally — for our government to target an American citizen and set him up for rank political purposes.
It’s become patently obvious that the Obama administration targeted Flynn.
James Comey, the FBI director at the time, flippantly admitted in an interview to violating protocol in sending a pair of agents over to see Flynn in the White House — without telling him he was under investigation, thus alleviating the need for him to have an administration lawyer with him.
President Obama was briefed about all of this and more regarding the “Russian collusion” investigation during an early January 2017 meeting with some of his top law enforcement, intelligence community, and State Department officials.
And we know that unmasking — revealing the identity of American citizens under surveillance — has become so commonplace that even when their names are illegally leaked, we’re to think it’s no big deal.
At least, that’s what Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security under Obama during the time Flynn was being targeted, believes.
In a tweet Wednesday he accused acting Office of National Intelligence Director Richard Grenell of “leaking” the names of Obama-era officials who requested that Flynn be unmasked (so that his name could then be summarily linked out of context in relation to an otherwise innocent conversation he had with Russia’s top U.S. diplomat at the time).
Those names include Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former ODNI James Clapper, former Vice President Joe Biden, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, and Denis McDonough, then Obama’s chief of staff.
The unconfirmed, acting DNI using his position to criminalize routine intelligence work to help re-elect the president and obscure Russian intervention in our democracy would normally be the scandal here…
— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 13, 2020
The crux of Rhodes’ tweet is that “routine” intelligence work was taking place in relation to Flynn, which, of course, implies that the unmasking and resultant leak of Flynn’s name are both ‘routine’ now as well.
Except that it shouldn’t be ‘routine,’ as actor James Woods reminded Rhodes.
There was nothing remotely “routine” about this kind of intelligence work, unless it was conducted by the East German Stasi during the Cold War. This will prove to be what you weasels all fear it is, the kind of treachery endemic to every coup d’etat in world history. #ObamaGate https://t.co/Zmx1dXRKwa
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) May 14, 2020
Investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, in a Twitter thread, explained how we’ve gotten to this point.
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/status/1260704223810990085
Then, they said, “Well, we will store the info for just a little while, but we will carefully control access and we will ‘mask’ or hide the identities of the U.S. citizens so they cannot be used for political or nefarious purposes.”
— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) May 13, 2020
Then, they said, “Well, we need to store the names & info of the innocent U.S. citizens longer than we first said. And it will go in a database. But don’t worry, in the very rare instance when names are ‘unmasked’, it will be a careful, contolled process only a few can do.”
— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) May 13, 2020
They added, “Nobody will be able to ‘unmask’ simply because they are curious or suspicious; there will have to be extremely important and well documented reasons directly related to national security. This will be extremely rare.”
— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) May 13, 2020
Now, some are saying: “What’s wrong with unmaskings? There are thousands and thousands of them every year…”
(I was told back in 2015 that this process was increasingly being abused by bad actors.)
— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) May 13, 2020
She’s correct on every point. Even Clapper admitted this week that he was unmasking Americans at least “once or twice a week” — but of course, he doesn’t recall anything about the Flynn unmasking.
Clapper: I was unmasking Americans “once or twice a week” but “I don’t recall what prompted a request that was made on my behalf for unmasking” Flynn. pic.twitter.com/Tq0G8HlkhA
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 14, 2020
Interestingly, the current intelligence apparatus and the manner in which it functions is the result of 1970s-era “reforms” meant to prevent the very progression that Attkisson pointed out. And she’s only the latest to voice concerns.
Back when Congress was debating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, Robert Bork, a former U.S. solicitor general and later unsuccessfully nominated to the Supreme Court by then-President Ronald Reagan, issued a prophetic warning about how the law wouldn’t be a ‘reform’ at all but rather a vehicle for abuse by authoritarians in power.
In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal published March 9, 1978, Bork warned, “The proposed [FISA] reflects a certain light-headedness about the damage the reform bill will do to indispensable constitutional institutions.”
He further warned:
When an attorney general must decide for himself, without shield of a warrant, whether to authorize surveillance and must accept the consequences if things go wrong, there is likely to be more care taken. The statute, however, has the effect of immunizing everyone, and sooner or later that fact will be taken advantage of.
And he argued “the law would almost certainly increase unauthorized disclosures of sensitive information simply by greatly widening the circle of people with access to it” — which is precisely what happened to Mike Flynn.
Boy, were Bork and Woods both spot-on.
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