Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice probably knew a lot more about why senior Trump campaign officials were unmasked while pretending to “know nothing” in media interviews.
As The Federalist points out, Rice’s declared ignorance is at odds with sources who say she knew exactly why the officials were under surveillance and subsequently unmasked.
Responding to accusations from House intelligence chairman Rep. Devin Nunes on March 22 that the Obama administration was gleaning “a lot of information on the president-elect and his transition team and what they were doing,” Rice pleaded ignorance.
In an interview with PBS, Rice was asked about Nunes’ concerns and whether the Trump team had “been caught up in surveillance of foreign individuals in that their identities may have been disclosed. Do you know anything about this?”
Rice told PBS that she had no idea what they were doing.
“I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today,” she told Judy Woodruff.
But on Wednesday, citing “multiple sources,” CNN reported that Rice knew exactly why those Trump officials had been unmasked. She wanted “to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York last year.” Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan has arrived in the U.S. without any diplomatic fanfare and that prompted Rice to start surveillance of Americans.
Even though the meeting was somehow perceived as an effort to insert Russians into the Trump transition team, it turned out there wasn’t a Russian in the bunch. Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon were among the key Trump transition figures present at the meeting.