Trump’s Probe Into ‘Unmasking’ Conspiracy Ends With No Wrongdoing Found: Report
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump’s Probe Into ‘Unmasking’ Conspiracy Ends With No Wrongdoing Found: Report
Attorney General William Barr appointed Texas U.S. Attorney John Bash in May to look into the unmasking requests from late 2016 and early 2017, which involved intercepted conversations between Michael Flynn — President Donald Trump ’s former national security adviser — and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the 2016 election.
The “unmasking” of names in classified documents is a common, legal practice that allows government officials with proper security clearance to better understand what they’re reading, the Post noted. During the Flynn unmasking, the list of Obama officials involved included Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey and director of national intelligence James Clapper.
But Trump has attacked the practice as a conspiracy to undermine his administration.
“No one has ever been criminally prosecuted for unmasking,” Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who worked in the Obama administration, told Reuters at the time of Barr’s announcement. “That would be tantamount to pursuing criminal charges against an intelligence analyst for merely doing his job.”
The Post, citing anonymous sources familiar with Bash’s investigation, said his findings also focused on whether Obama-era officials provided information from the documents to reporters. But the investigation didn’t find the type of smoking gun the Trump administration could leverage into political points, the sources said.
The Department of Justice has so far declined to release the findings of the investigation.
Trump has been under scrutiny lately over his efforts to pressure the Justice Department to investigate his political opponents in the waning days of his reelection campaign. He has said this month that he is “very disappointed” in Barr and called for the quick release of a probe into the Obama administration’s efforts to investigate any possible collusion between Russia and the Trump administration.
The attorney general has said those results will not be available before the Nov. 3 election.
“That’s a disgrace,” Trump said in an interview with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh earlier this month. “I think it’s a disgrace. It’s an embarrassment.”
The president’s efforts to influence the Justice Department for political purposes has worried those within the agency and outside legal analysts. Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec told Fox News in May that the practice of “unmasking” wasn’t “inherently” wrong but said the administration was concerned about how often the requests were made in the Obama White House.
Reuters noted at the time that the Trump administration has requested far more unmaskings than his predecessor.
Bash said last week that he would resign from the Department of Justice and move into the private sector, an abrupt departure that surprised many in the agency.
“I hope that I have discharged my authority wisely and have improved the safety and security of my fellow Texans,” he said in a statement at the time. “I leave the Department with a profound respect for its people, its traditions, and its importance to our constitutional democracy.”
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Attorney General William Barr appointed Texas U.S. Attorney John Bash in May to look into the unmasking requests from late 2016 and early 2017, which involved intercepted conversations between Michael Flynn — President Donald Trump ’s former national security adviser — and Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the 2016 election.
The “unmasking” of names in classified documents is a common, legal practice that allows government officials with proper security clearance to better understand what they’re reading, the Post noted. During the Flynn unmasking, the list of Obama officials involved included Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey and director of national intelligence James Clapper.
But Trump has attacked the practice as a conspiracy to undermine his administration.
“No one has ever been criminally prosecuted for unmasking,” Ned Price, a former CIA analyst who worked in the Obama administration, told Reuters at the time of Barr’s announcement. “That would be tantamount to pursuing criminal charges against an intelligence analyst for merely doing his job.”
So the 'president' has been whining about this for almost four years now. AND NOTHING!
But, but, but all those right wing pundits said they were guilty! Whaaaaaah! It must be the 'deep state'! Oh, wait, it's Trump's own justice department and personal fixer Bill Barr... It must be those baby eating Democrats who got to him!... /s
There is a reason right wing media has been shoveling nothing but bullshit conspiracy theories, it's because they work on the simple minded who apparently make up large part of their listeners. Nearly 40% of conservative Republicans still refuse to accept that Obama was born in America, of course they're not going to accept that all the lies they were told about Democrats aren't absolute truth which is why they'll likely get all angry about the "injustice" of it all.
What's really going to be enjoyable is watching dishonest Donald get indicted and arrested after leaving office considering there is actual evidence of his wrongdoing, from the numerous obstruction of justice accounts in the Mueller report, his likely tax evasion and/or bank fraud to being an "unnamed co-conspirator" in a felony campaign violation case where his co-conspirator already served time. These sycophant Trump supporters are going to lose their minds as the dump truck of litigation drops on their dear Leaders head this next year, though I suppose that's not such a big loss considering how miniscule they apparently are.
We're still waiting for those Durham indictments. . .
Don't worry. If Trump gets re-elected there will be at lease 7 more investigations of the exact same thing.
Per Trump, this will be bigger than Watergate and Obama will be going to jail...
LMAO the only thing bigger than Watergate in his world is his ass.
Look out Barr here comes the bus.
Trump may draft the ''Keebler'' to once again be AG.
Yes and Carter Page was selling secrets to Russians!
I just heard that the Trump administration ''unmasked close to 17K people in 2018'' Obama adminstration ''unmasked a bit over 9k in 2016''.
What a fricking fiasco for Tramp and the lemmings.