Phantom of the White House (unmasking the smokescreen)
Picture this: the President’s National Security Advisor is given intelligence showing that the Russian government was intervening in the United States Presidential election. The Advisor then sees that in the course of the campaign, it appears that one of the Presidential campaigns is coordinating it’s efforts with the Russian attacks. As the Advisor reads through the intelligence, it shows that Russian intelligence representatives are having conversations with Americans about this effort.
(see October 6th, after the “Bus Tapes” when the Podesta emails are released per the prediction of Roger Stone)
Whatever political party is in power, and whatever political party is campaigning for the Presidency, it would be unreasonable, incompetent, and probably malfeasance if the National Security Advisor did NOT take all legal measures to find out what was going on. It IS legal for the National Security Advisor to ask the “owner” of the intelligence (in this case the National Security Agency) to “unmask” the names of the Americans on the other side of those conversations.
President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, did exactly that. She did exactly what we would expect of any National Security Advisor of either party to do. She saw a threat to our core national interest, the choosing of the President, and acted appropriately to try to find out what was going on.
All the other nonsense about this is just a stall and a smokescreen. Fox News, the Daily Caller and the like have pulled out all the stops on Susan Rice, from Benghazi to her original roles in the Clinton administration. None of that has any relevance to this issue.
If Susan Rice had “unmasked” Americans named in the intelligence reports (Michael Flynn for one) for political reasons, wouldn’t she have done more to actually influence the election before election day? If she tried to disrupt the Trump campaign, wouldn’t that information have been more influential on October 7th? At least give her the respect to think that if she “playing” this card, she would have actually played it.
It is just another distraction, another “shiny ball” to keep the public distracted, and to give Senators like Rand Paul the opportunity to show “righteous indignation.” It is amazing to me that those Republicans, some of whom were as damaged by the Russian actions as Hillary, still stand up for Trump (or stand silently by) as the evidence of Russian actions grow.
By the way – just announced – Steve Bannon removed from National Security Council – look for the quiet removal of Ezra Cohen-Wotnick soon…
