Former Vice President Joe Biden and other top Obama officials received information in response to “unmasking” requests targeting retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in the final weeks of the previous administration, according to a memo declassified by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell.
Thirty-seven of the 49 unmasking requests appear to have taken place prior to the Flynn’s controversial phone calls with Russia’s ambassador as he was under investigation as part of the FBI’s inquiry into ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia which was later wrapped into Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.
The list, obtained by the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, shows Biden received information at least once in response to such an unmasking request on Jan. 12, 2017, but it is not clear whether he made the request or even looked at the information. Biden is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in the 2020 contest for the White House.
The date on which Biden received the information about Flynn, Jan. 12, was the same day the Washington Post ran a column by David Ignatius containing leaked classified details from Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador.
The revelation is already making waves in the 2020 election.
“Joe Biden’s limp claim that he doesn’t know anything about the railroading of Gen. Michael Flynn just got even more unbelievable,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement, “Americans have a right to know the depth of Biden’s involvement in the setup of Gen. Flynn to further the Russia collusion hoax.”
The newly declassified records show that 16 individuals made unmasking requests related to the incoming Trump national security adviser, and the list shows which officials received that sensitive information. It was not immediately clear which individuals made the requests, but those who received the unmasking information were laid out chronologically.
Former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough, and former FBI Director James Comey are all on the list.
Republicans have alleged since 2017 that Obama-era officials improperly unmasked associates of then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the Russia investigation. Democrats have defended the intelligence-gathering process, arguing that the collection of identifying information is inevitable.
Unmasking occurs when U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdropping on foreigners sweep up communications with U.S. citizens in what is known as incidental collection. When the intelligence reporting is shared across the government, names of U.S. citizens are typically concealed or masked to protect their identities. The names can be unmasked, however, if U.S. officials make the request.
Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to investigators about his 2016 conversations on Dec. 22 and Dec. 29 with Kislyak about a United Nations resolution on Israel and sanctions. The U.S. government intercepted Flynn’s discussions with Kislyak, after which former FBI agent Peter Strzok and another agent, believed to be Joseph Pientka, interviewed him on Jan. 24, 2017 about the contents of the first conversation.
After changing legal teams, Flynn said at this start of this year he was “innocent of this crime” and sought to withdraw his guilty plea. The Justice Department moved to dismiss the charges against him last week, and now the judge presiding over the case is inviting outside opinions.
In an interview earlier this week, after first denying he knew anything about the FBI investigation into Flynn, Biden corrected himself when pressed on it by journalist George Stephanopoulos, who noted his presence at a high-profile Oval Office meeting in the final days of the Obama administration on Jan. 5, 2017. After that meeting, documents show Comey discussed with Obama and Biden intercepted contacts between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.
Biden audibly sighed on ABC’s Good Morning America as Stephanopoulos asked what the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee knew about an early 2017 investigation into Flynn and whether there was anything improper done by the Obama administration.
“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden said. “This is all about diversion. This is a game this guy plays all the time. The country is in crisis. … He should stop trying to always divert attention from the real concerns of the American people.”
But after Stephanopoulos followed up, noting that the former vice president was said to be in attendance at the early January 2017 meeting, Biden corrected himself.
“I thought you asked me whether or not I had anything to do with him being prosecuted,” Biden replied, after fidgeting with his earpiece. “I was aware that there was, that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about it.”
The new unmasking information was unearthed earlier this May by Gen. Paul Nakasone of the National Security Agency in response to a request from Grenell. The details were released by the top spy chief following requests by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
“The officials listed should confirm whether they reviewed this information, why they asked for it and what they did with it, and answer many other questions that have been raised by recent revelations,” Johnson and Grassley said in a joint statement. “We are making this public because the American people have a right to know what happened.”
The new NSA document sheds some light on the murky unmasking process.
“Below is a list of recipients who may have received Lt. Gen. Flynn’s identity in response to a request processed between 8 November 2016 and 31 January 2017 to unmask an identity that had been generically referred to in an NSA foreign intelligence report,” the NSA said. “Each individual was an authorized recipient of the original report and the unmasking was approved through NSA’s standard process, which includes a review of the justification for the request.”
The NSA further noted: “Only certain personnel are authorized to submit unmasking requests into the NSA system. In this case, 16 authorized individuals requested unmaskings for [REDACTED] different NSA intelligence reports for select identified principals. While the principals are identified below, we cannot confirm they saw the unmasked information. This response does not include any requests outside of the specified time-frame.”
The declassified list covers the time period from Election Day on Nov. 8, 2016, through the Trump presidential transition period and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2017, to the end of that month.
Power was the authorized recipient of information from unmasking requests made on Nov. 30, Dec. 2, Dec. 7, twice on Dec. 14, Dec. 23, and Jan. 11; Clapper on Dec. 2, Dec. 28, and Jan. 7; Brennan on Dec. 14 and Dec. 15; McDonough on Jan. 5; and Comey on Dec. 15.
Numerous other top Obama national security officials are named as having received Flynn unmasking intelligence too, although the names of a dozen recipients remain redacted.
Flynn’s lawyers have touted recently released FBI records as being exculpatory evidence that was concealed from the defense team. The documents suggest that Strzok and the FBI’s “7th floor” leadership stopped the bureau from closing its investigation into Flynn in early January 2017, even though investigators said they had “no derogatory information” on him in their draft closing communication, after intercepts of Flynn’s communications with the Russian envoy emerged. Emails from later that month show Strzok, along with then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page and several others, sought out ways to continue investigating Flynn, including by deploying the Logan Act.
Classified details about Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador were repeatedly leaked to the Washington Post in January and February of 2017. John Durham, the U.S. attorney picked by Barr to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia inquiry, is scrutinizing the Flynn unmaskings and subsequent politicized leaks as part of his inquiry.
DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec said on Fox News on Tuesday that she was “sure” that Durham “will take a look at” at the recently declassified Flynn unmasking revelations.
“And just to make this point, John Durham in his review of 2016 and 2017 and what happened there — he is already looking at this issue of unmasking under his border review, and I can tell you that his team is working diligently to get to the bottom of what happened,” Kupec said, adding, “No stone will be left unturned.”
Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman from the Obama era, said the documents released on Wednesday show “senior Obama admin officials did their jobs.”
As [former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates] testified to Congress three years ago, there were concerns about Flynn’s conduct on the call with Kislyak. If the Trump admin believes the transcript shows no wrongdoing, they should release it too,” he added in a tweet.
Johnson and Grassley commended Grenell and Barr for “their transparency and responsiveness.”
“Our investigation of these matters has been ongoing for years, and as information finally comes to light, our focus on these issues is even more important now,” they said.
“The records are one step forward in an important effort to get to the bottom of what the Obama administration did during the Russia investigation and to Lt. General Flynn,” the senators added. “We will continue to review this information and push for additional relevant disclosures until we are satisfied that the American people know the full truth.”
