Unsurprisingly when Trey Gowdy said “the Trump family was unmasked on inauguration day”… interviewer Sandra Smith never paused to say: “wait, unmasked in what”?

During his tenure as House Oversight Committee Chair, apparently Trey Gowdy has seen intelligence reports showing the Trump family was unmasked on inauguration day. The logical follow-up question would be: who was generating intelligence reports on the Trump family?

Alas, the dangling participle never had the opportunity to dangle… go figure.

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Follow the bouncing ball. If Gowdy is correct, and he has no vested interest in just making it up, then there was FBI domestic surveillance of the Trump family on inauguration day; which generated an intelligence report. Yet, apparently, no-one seems surprised by that… I digress.

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Today President Trump travels to Allentown, Pennsylvania to visit the Owens and Minor distribution center for coronavirus relief supplies. The president is expected to deliver remarks at approximately 2:15pm – 2:30pm ET – Livestreams Below.

WH Livestream Link – Fox News Livestream – RSBN Livestream Link – NBC Livestream

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It’s always worthwhile to revisit past assertions and denials when presented with new evidence.  Consider this…

During an interview on April 26, 2019, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, Ben Rhodes, told a journalist the Obama White House didn’t even know there was an FBI investigation into President-elect Trump or Michael Flynn.  WATCH:

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If the White House didn’t know about an FBI investigation into Michael Flynn (per Ben Rhodes), then how does President Obama tell the FBI to conduct their investigation “by the book” according to Ben Rhodes boss, National Security Advisor Susan Rice.  See the problem?

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President Trump sits down for a lengthy hour-long interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo.  The President discusses coronavirus, the economy, China, trade, Flynn, the election, and much more.  55 minute interview taped yesterday, aired today.

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It likely takes a lot of main justice approvals to serve a search warrant for the device of the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  The Chairman of the powerful committee also sits on the congressional oversight team known as the gang-of-eight.

According to the Los Angeles Times the FBI served a search warrant on North Carolina Republican Senator Richard Burr Wednesday. The warrant appears connected to an ongoing investigation on whether or not Burr violated a law that prevents members of Congress from trading insider information they learn from their work.  According to the report federal agents seized Burr’s cell phone after they served the warrant at his residence in the Washington DC area.

The sketchy guardian of swamp secrets is retiring at the end of his term so he’s probably just willing to wait out the investigation and negotiate with the DC justice-tier to pay a fine and move on.  DC has a totally different set of laws and outcomes than everywhere else.  Any fine, and any resulting legal expenses, will likely be paid by a lobbying firm or political interest group who previously contracted with, and received benefit from, Senator Burr.

It’s the way of the swamp.

Against the unmasking discussion currently underway, it is worthwhile contrasting the distinctions between: (1) the NSA unmasking of incidental collection; and (2) the FBI unmasking as a result of targeted investigations.

There is a big difference between the two types; and Mike Flynn was a subject of both.

Appearing before a congressional committee on March 20, 2017, FBI Director James Comey outlined the FBI parameters for unmasking U.S. persons who are captured as part of domestic FBI surveillance.

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The distinction between the two unmasking aspects is becoming increasingly important. The FBI is currently claiming the Flynn-Kislyak call was due to “incidental collection”; this is a lie. The New York Times is pushing that lie today:

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First things first: ♦Understand Obama’s Surveillance Operation HERE.  ♦Michael Flynn wasn’t under a FISA (Title-1) HERE …. that’s the background.

Devin Nunes appears with Lou Dobbs to discuss the recent list of Obama-era officials who unmasked NSA intercepts of Michael Flynn talking to foreign government officials.  Rep. Nunes reminds the audience that Flynn is only one person within a much larger group of Trump transition team members who were under surveillance by Team Obama.

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A few points on the unmasking before Rand Paul response.  First, the release today is only what the Obama team did regarding unmasking General Flynn.  As Devin Nunes previously outlined, there are many more Trump transition team members who were unmasked as the Obama team conducted surveillance on the incoming administration.

Second, the NSA “reports” are related to actual transcripts, emails and text messages of communication; not just various intelligence interpretations of those communications.

As Senator Rand Paul shares, the effort of the Obama and Biden administration to unmask their political opposition during the transition; and then use widespread distribution and leaks to the media to push a specific one-sided view; is the weaponization of the intelligence apparatus to target political opposition.  That’s the major issue:

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Again, a reminder, these reports surround only NSA intercepts. Simultaneous to this there was an ongoing FBI counterintelligence operation using FISA surveillance (Carter Page) and non-fisa targeted FBI surveillance of Michael Flynn.

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For the sake of understanding this specific release, “unmasking” occurs when the NSA, eavesdropping on foreign communications, sweeps up communications with U.S. citizen. That is known as “incidental collection.”

When the intelligence about that communication is shared across the government, the names of U.S. citizens in the communication are typically concealed or masked to protect their identities. However, the names can be unmasked if U.S. officials make the request.

In this release [pdf here], the Obama-era NSA was monitoring various foreign government officials and within their communication they picked up contacts with incoming President-elect Trump’s National Security Advisor Lt. General Michael Flynn.  This release only includes NSA intercepts; not other intelligence agency reports; only the NSA.

The NSA generated [redacted number] of reports based on those foreign contacts. The reports are actual transcripts of the conversations.  The Obama-era officials then asked the NSA to unmask the name of General Flynn so they could see the content and context of the calls.  Current DNI Ric Grenell has assembled a list of who asked the NSA to unmask incoming NSA Michael Flynn from November 8, 2016 through January 31, 2017.

It is important to remember, these intercepts are part of the normal function of monitoring foreign communications.  There is nothing nefarious about the monitoring and there is nothing nefarious about a foreign person contacting the incoming administration, via General Flynn, to begin preparing for the change in administrations.

However, what is completely alarming and disturbing, is the extent to which the Obama administration went to share the contacts and transcripts of the calls with a myriad of government officials.  That’s where the list comes in.

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President Trump is meeting with Colorado Governor Jared Polis and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum at the White House today. The leaders are anticipated to deliver remarks from the Rose Garden at 4:00pm ET during a press availability.

UPDATE: Video Added

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. It’s great to be with the Governor of Colorado and the Governor of North Dakota, two governors that are working very hard — harder than they thought they’d have to work. We also have two very distinguished senators that you know very much: Senator Gardner, who you know, and — John, say hello. Say hello to the fake news.

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