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Former vice president Joe Biden appears on a declassified list of Obama administration officials who requested the unmasking of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn. The list, obtained by CBS News, shows that Biden’s office made its request to see Flynn’s identity on January 12, 2017 — the same day that Washington Post …
Former vice president Joe Biden appears on a declassified list of Obama administration officials who requested the unmasking of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn.
The list, obtained by CBS News, shows that Biden’s office made its request to see Flynn’s identity on January 12, 2017 — the same day that Washington Post columnist David Igantius broke news of Flynn’s calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. While the NSA says it “cannot confirm” that those listed personally saw the information, the list also names former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director John Brennan, and former FBI director James Comey.
SCOOP @CBSNews obtains @RichardGrenell notification to congress declassified “unmasking list” Flynn between late 2016 and January 2017 – Read 3 pages provided by NSA here pic.twitter.com/NozVpQlRn2
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 13, 2020
American citizens whose communications are incidentally picked up in national-security surveillance are protected by law. But they can be unmasked by a select number of U.S. officials, and it is illegal to leak unmasked information or use it for political gain.
Biden said Tuesday that he knew the FBI had “asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about it,” when asked about his knowledge of the Flynn case — which the Department of Justice dropped last week after reviewing new exculpatory information. Biden initially claimed he knew “nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” but was forced to backtrack after ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pointed out Biden was reported to be in an Oval Office meeting on January 5, 2017, in which Flynn was discussed.
Former President Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough also requested access to Flynn’s name on January 5, 2017, the same day as the Oval Office meeting. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates said in testimony released with Flynn’s case dismissal last week that in the meeting, she was “so surprised” to hear Obama asking about Flynn’s call with Kislyak that “she was having a hard time processing it and listening to the conversation at the same time.
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell handed over the list to Attorney General Bill Barr last week after declassifying it, but DOJ sources revealed yesterday that they were unlikely to release the list. The documents obtained by CBS News show that Grenell sent the list to Senators Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) who are conducting a probe into Biden’s Hunter Biden’s business dealings and Joe Biden’s diplomatic work.
In a March letter to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Obama’s spokesperson claimed Johnson and Grassley were giving “credence to a Russian disinformation campaign” by asking to see “Obama administration records related to certain meetings connected to Ukraine.”
