16 Sep 2017 12:06 am
On Friday, President Donald Trump told pool reporters he still believes former National Security Adviser Susan Rice did something wrong when she unmasked Trump administration officials late last year.
“She’s not supposed to be doing that,” said Trump, who in April accused Rice of committing a crime without presenting any evidence she actually did so. “What she did was wrong.”
There’s just one problem — now, more than ever before, there’s absolutely no reason to believe Rice did anything improper at all. Even well-informed Republican members of Congress acknowledge as much.
Rice detailed the reason she unmasked Trump officials to House investigators in a classified setting. On Wednesday, CNN reported more details about what Rice privately told the House Intelligence Committee about the incident.
According to CNN’s report, Rice told House investigators that she unmasked certain Trump officials because wanted “to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York” late last year.
Rice said the crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahya, made the trip to New York without informing the Obama administration, which piqued the intelligence community’s curiosity.
CNN reported that the crown prince met with several top Trump officials during that trip, including Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, and Steve Bannon. Later, the UAE was later involved in an effort to set up a back-channel communication between Trump officials and Russia, according to the outlet.
This explanation satisfied Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, including Rep. Tom Rooney (FL), who told CNN that “I didn’t hear anything to believe that she did anything illegal.”
CNN quotes a number of Rooney’s colleagues who all basically say the same thing — after hearing her rationale for unmasking Trump officials, they’re now convinced that Rice did nothing wrong.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-lying-s ... 2a880/amp/