Reminder on “unmasking”, the variety of requesters who requested Flynn unmasking is a bit of a red herring. Or at least it’s not as indicative of widespread wrongdoing as you might think.
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Recall, an “unmasking” happens when an “authorized person” is reading intel and a US person’s name is redacted, and they request it to be unmasked. Could be legitimately needed for context, could be politically driven.
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But today’s release is more reflective of how widespread our monitoring is. So for instance it is likely someone in the Italian gov was being monitored, and the Ambassador was like, “wait, what US person was Giuseppe talking to?“
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The ones to look closer at are the WH “inner circle” types & the chronology. But ultimately there are 2 things needed before any real conclusions can be drawn:
1) what was nature of the intel report that prompted the unmasking?
2) who else did a particular “unmasker” request?
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1) what was nature of the intel report that prompted the unmasking?
2) who else did a particular “unmasker” request?
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Each of these requests has a paper trail that justified the request and shows what they were reading that prompted it. Likewise, the system tracks other requests made by these people.
That’s the investigation that needs to be done. Surely Barr & Durham are working that angle? 5/5
That’s the investigation that needs to be done. Surely Barr & Durham are working that angle? 5/5
Bonus thought: while it might not be indicative of widespread wrongdoing against Flynn, it may very well lead us to much narrower wrongdoing that is much worse than we anticipated. Lots to unravel. Most still classified.
Oh, one more: there seems to be confusion about whether all the "unmaskers" were requesting Flynn's info after viewing the *same* NSA foreign intelligence report. Not likely. With lots of moving pieces, @GenFlynn could have been included in many reports.
