Steve Bannon.

[hollodero]

(04-12-2017, 01:36 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: She didn't deny surveillance of foreign nationals. She didn't deny incidental collection. She denied names were disclosed/leaked.

unmasked :) - ok, I'm now willing to just let it go.

(04-12-2017, 01:36 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: What is the intent of this scandal? To suggest Obama had Trump wire tapped during the election to lend support to Trump's false claim. That didn't work. So what happen next?  They tried to make a case Trump was being illegally surveilled by the government after the election and the White House was leaking/disclosing/unmasking names. Rice asked to know the names of people talking to Russians in an intelligence report in her capacity as the National Security advisor. The scandal seeks to equate unmasking with leaking, with incidental surveillance with illegal surveillance, and government oversight with government over reach. Why? To cover Trump's ass. It's as simple as that. Cover Trump's ass.

Oh, I do not doubt a single word you said. Sure that seems to be the motivation behind it, or it was at least used that way, and I do not support said motivations and usages. I was not trying to imply the Trump narrative gained any credibility.

What I, for example, can very well imagine is that there was indeed an attempt to unmask - not leak, that's something else, unmask - as many names of Trump associates as possible. I can very well believe that's what these Bannon staffers put Nunes on in the first place, hints of a lot of unmasking going on in classified reports, containing names of Trump associates. Maybe in places where these staffers or whoever felt the unmasking was not that necessary and seems to be explicitly aimed at said Trump aides. To me, that seems to be a credible assumption, although of course far from being "proven" in any way - but it would explain some stuff. Whether this, if true, is bending the lines or stepping over some lines, I do not know. It might be a very small part of the whole story and I see it as such, not as a scandal and anything. It doesn't make Trump's baffling lies about that bad or sick guy wiretapping him any more truthful or less outrageous. But I also think - independent from everything I just said - that Rice's words can plausibly be seen as a lie. That's all.