[...]
The
White House, meanwhile, is urging Nunes and his colleagues to keep
pursuing what improper surveillance and leaks may have occurred before
Trump took office. They’ve been emboldened in the wake of March 2
comments from former Obama administration official Evelyn Farkas, who
on MSNBC suggested her former colleagues tried to gather material on
Trump team contacts with Russia.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday her comments and
other reports raise “serious” concerns about whether there was an
“organized and widespread effort by the Obama administration to use and
leak highly sensitive intelligence information for political purposes.”
“Dr. Farkas’ admissions alone are devastating,” he said.
Farkas parted ways with the White House in 2015 and defended herself on
Twitter, saying she didn’t personally “give anybody anything except
advice” on Russia information and wanted Congress to ask for facts.
The communications collected from Trump team associates apparently were
picked up during surveillance of foreign targets. But an intelligence
source familiar with those targets said they were spied on long before
Trump became the GOP presidential nominee in mid-July.
Person
who did the unmasking is someone very well known, very high up, very
senior in the intelligence world, and is not a member of the FBI.
In addition, citizens affiliated with Trump’s team who were unmasked
were not associated with any intelligence about Russia or other foreign
intelligence, sources confirmed. The initial unmasking led to other
surveillance, which led to other private citizens being wrongly
unmasked, sources said.
"Unmasking is not unprecedented, but unmasking for political purposes
... specifically of Trump transition team members ... is highly suspect
and questionable,” an intelligence source told Fox News. “Opposition by
some in the intelligence agencies who were very connected to the Obama
and Clinton teams was strong. After Trump was elected, they decided
they were going to ruin his presidency by picking them off one by one."[
FULL]
(Via Skoonj)
