DNI Grenell Releases Names of Obama Officials Who Requested Unmasking of NSA Reports Containing Michael Flynn

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 masked to protect their identities. However, the names can be unmasked if U.S. officials make the request.

In this release, the Obama-era NSA was monitoring various foreign government officials and within their communication they picked up contacts with Flynn. This release only includes NSA intercepts; not other intelligence agency reports; only the NSA.

The NSA generated [number redacted] reports based on those foreign contacts. The reports are 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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The Obama administration wanted to know and disseminate the communication of incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

UN Ambassador Samantha Power made 6 requests to the NSA. DNI James Clapper made 3 requests… and so it goes.

Most of the unmasking happens before the now infamous Flynn phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 29, 2016. Some unmasking requests were before and after that call.

Again, these are intercepted communications from the NSA monitoring of foreign government officials. There’s nothing surprising about the capture itself. Nor is it surprising the foreign officials would be contacting General Flynn. The issue is the distribution and leaking of information in the transcripts of the phone calls to use that information to push a Trump-Russia collusion narrative in the transition period.

Flynn was also a target for the counterintelligence operations of the FBI - another tranche of intelligence that could be declassified. This is where John Durham and Bill Barr are presumably focused.

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