Politics

McMaster: Lying Susan Rice can have unfettered access to classified information

In a letter sent to her home during the last week of April, President Donald Trump’s National Security adviser H.R. McMaster told Susan Rice that she could maintain her security clearance to access classified information, despite reservations the president has about her motives, Circa.com reported Thursday.

Moreover, Circa said it confirmed the letter waived her “need-to-know” requirement on anything she viewed or received during her tenure, essentially giving her unfetterred access to classified information.

According to Sara Carter, “Trump was not aware of the letter or McMaster’s decision, according to two Senior West Wing officials and an intelligence official, who spoke to Circa on condition that they not be named.”

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Carter added:

“I hereby waive the requirement that you must have a ‘need-to-know’ to access any classified information contained in items you ‘originated, reviewed, signed or received while serving,’ as National Security Adviser,” the letter said. The letter also states that the “NSC will continue to work with you to ensure the appropriate security clearance documentation remains on file to allow you access to classified information.”

Circa revealed in March that during President Obama’s tenure, top aides — including Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch — routinely reviewed intelligence reports received from the National Security Agency’s incidental intercepts of Americans abroad. They were doing so by taking advantage of rules Obama relaxed starting in 2011 to help the government better fight terrorism, espionage by foreign enemies and hacking threats, according to documents obtained by Circa.

In June, the House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Rice as part of the committee’s larger investigation into the unmasking of Americans under the Obama administration. Rice maintains that she never accessed the information inappropriately and has agreed to testify before the committee.

It gets worse, according to a post at Breitbart:

One official questioned Rice’s access despite an ongoing investigation into her activities in reportedly unmasking Trump officials’ conversations with Russia during the presidential transition.

As Bloomberg’s Eli Lake reported, McMaster also concluded that Rice did nothing wrong by unmasking Trump transition officials.

Rice celebrated the exit of former national security advisor Michael Flynn and welcomed Trump’s decision to hire McMaster.

Carter explained that under the law and under certain circumstances, it’s common practice for some senior government officials to be given unfettered access to classified information, and their “need to know” is waived under “Executive Order 13526 Section 4.4 Access by Historical Researchers and Certain Former Government Personnel.”

But, she added, “…White House officials told Circa that under the current congressional investigation, and given President Trump’s ongoing concern that members of his team were unmasked, Rice’s clearance should have been limited to congressional testimony only or revoked until the end of the investigation. Rice and Brennan have confirmed they sought the unredacted names of Americans in NSA-sourced intelligence reports, but insisted their requests were routine parts of their work and that they did nothing improper. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power also has legal authority to unmask officials.”

“Basically, this letter which was signed in the last week of April undercuts the president’s assertion that Susan Rice’s unmasking activity was inappropriate. In essence, anybody who committed a violation as she did would not be given access to classified information,” a senior West Wing official who verified the veracity of the document told Circa. “In fact, they would have their security clearance and right to ‘need-to-know’ stripped.”

An intelligence official further said that “…the NSA decision to provide this level of access to the subject of several ongoing investigations and to waive her ‘need-to-know’ requirement raises serious legal, moral and ethical concerns.”

That’s putting it mildly…

More to come… Stay tuned.

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Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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