Susan Rice On Unmasking Claims: 'I Leaked Nothing To Nobody'

WASHINGTON, DC — Susan Rice, President Obama's former national security adviser, pushed back Tuesday against criticism of her requests to "unmask" names of Trump officials included in intelligence reports while she worked in the White House.

She did not comment on the report, published Monday by Bloomberg, but she defended the integrity of the administration's handling of intelligence.

“The allegation is that somehow, Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes,” Rice said on MSNBC. “That’s absolutely false.”

Rice noted that it was common for her to make "unmasking requests." "Unmasking" involves revealing the name of an individual who is a part of an intelligence report — which could mean the individual was recorded or simply mentioned by others who were surveilled — but is not the target of the surveillance itself. When foreign entities are spied on, the names of an Americans must be redacted to preserve their privacy. However, if the names are considered pertinent to the investigation, there are legal procedures that allow officials to unredact the name.

This legal process is distinct from "leaking," which involves illegally distributing classified information to unauthorized people.

“I leaked nothing to nobody,” she said.

“The notion, which some people are trying to suggest, that by asking for the identity of the American person is the same is leaking it — that’s completely false,” Rice noted. “There is no equivalence between so-called unmasking and leaking.”

She also denied the substance of Trump's accusations of wiretapping.

"There was no such collection or surveillance on Trump Tower or Trump individuals, it is important to understand, directed by the White House or targeted at Trump individuals,” Rice said.

Trump retweeted an article Tuesday from the conservative Daily Caller that didn't cite any firsthand sources, but it said that Rice ordered officials to create spreadsheets of Trump associates' phone calls that were collected in intelligence operations. Rice denied the content of these claims, but despite the Daily Caller's insinuations of illegality, it's not at all clear if any crime would have been committed if the report were true.

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