Obama-Era Officials Subpoenaed By House Intel Committee In Trump "Unmasking" Probe

While it was not surprising that as part of the ongoing probe into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections, the House Intel Committee issued a total of seven subpoenas on Wednesday as the WSJ reported, what was surprisng is that in addition to four subpoenas focusing purely on the Russia investigation, the Republican-led committee also issued three subpoenas focusing on "unmasking" questions, involving how and why the names of associates of President Donald Trump were unredacted and distributed within classified reports by Obama administration officials during the transition between administrations.

As part of the "unmasking" investigation, in addition to the NSA, the House committee also subpoeaned the FBI and the CIA for information on how and why Trump-linked names were exposed to the entire US intel community, and led to an avalanche of "unnamed sources" stories. Recall that typically information about Americans intercepted in foreign surveillance is redacted, even in classified reports distributed within the government, unless a compelling need exists to reveal them. Unmasking requests aren’t uncommon by top intelligence community officials but Republicans want to know whether any of the unmaskings of Trump campaign officials during the transition were politically motivated.

According to the WSJ, Republicans on the committee have been pushing for a thorough investigation of how the names of Trump campaign officials became exposed in classified intelligence reports based off intelligence community intercepts. Specifically, the three "unmaksing" subpoenas seek information on requests made by former national security adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power for names to be unmasked in classified material.

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