Susan Rice, President Obama’s former national security advisor, totally denied reports that she ordered intelligence officials to “spy” on members of the Trump team in order to specifically “expose them” during a Tuesday interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
“Within the context of the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, did you seek the names of people involved in — to unmask the names of people involved in the Trump transition, the Trump campaign, the people surrounding the president-elect in order to spy on them and expose them?” Mitchell first posed.
WATCH:
“Let me be absolutely clear,” Rice responded. “Absolutely not for any political purposes, to spy, to expose, for anything.”
“Did you leak the name of Mike Flynn?” Mitchell pushed onward.
“I never leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would,” Rice answered with a laugh.
Mitchell would go on to point to reporting from The Daily Caller, alleging Rice specifically ordered intelligence officers to produce “detailed spreadsheets” involving Donald Trump and his aides, which Rice also denied. (FORMER US ATTORNEY: Rice Ordered Spy Agencies To Produce ‘Detailed Spreadsheets’ Involving Trump)
“Absolutely false,” she answered. “No spreadsheet, nothing of the sort.”
“The notion that which some people are trying to suggest that by asking for the identity of an American person is the same as leaking it is totally false.”
UPDATE 1:30 pm, EST: Joe DiGenova, the former U.S. attorney who first told TheDC of Rice’s alleged spreadsheets responded to her Tuesday interview with a brief statement: “That would come as quite a surprise to the government officials who have reviewed dozens of those spreadsheets.”