House Intel Chairman: Obama Official Made ‘Hundreds’ of Suspicious Unmasking Requests

A senior Obama administration official made “hundreds” of requests last year to unmask the identities of Americans in intelligence reports, including some members of the Trump campaign, says California Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In a letter to Dan Coats, the director of the office of national intelligence, Nunes asserted that senior Obama administration officials, “offered remarkably few individualized justifications” for the unmasking requests.

He also said that some of the unmasking requests “were followed by anonymous leaks of those names to the media.”

Nunes has led a one-man campaign to find out whether Obama administration officials improperly requested the unmasking of Trumpworld figures identified in the intelligence reports. The Republican has also tried to find out who leaked the names of unmasked individuals, information which is classified.

Typically, intelligence reports redact the names of Americans who are mentioned by foreign nationals who are being surveilled by U.S. intelligence agencies. But a small number of U.S. government officials have the ability to request that those names be revealed. The requests must be made for intelligence-related purposes, and the information is classified. (Read more from “House Intel Chairman: Obama Official Made ‘Hundreds’ of Suspicious Unmasking Requests” HERE)

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