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Susan Rice must be indicted. And she should spend years in prison.
Former President Obama’s national security advisor is in the middle of a political firestorm. Numerous media outlets report that Rice oversaw a spying operation on Donald Trump that lasted for nearly a year beginning in January 2016. Moreover, she ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to produce “detailed spreadsheets” of intercepted communications involving Trump and many of his associates. Rice also on numerous occasions requested that key Trump aides be “unmasked” — their private identities revealed — in intelligence reports, and then had those documents widely disseminated across the intelligence community. The aim was obvious: To make sure they were illegally leaked to media collaborators, who hiding behind the protections of the First Amendment could embarrass and undermine the Trump presidency.
The conversations between Trump and his associates that were being monitored were completely legal. They had nothing to do with Russia, the Kremlin or foreign intelligence. In short, Rice was engaged in a purely political spying operation whose only purpose was to dig up dirt on Trump and his aides.
The Obama regime was listening in on conversations dealing with campaign strategy, foreign and domestic policy matters, and personnel decisions.
The Obama administration engaged in gangster tactics reminiscent of a police state. Rice did what leftist thugs do in Castro’s Cuba or socialist Venezuela: spy on political opponents in an attempt to blackmail or humiliate them.
Her actions not only grossly violated civil liberties and privacy rights. They represented a fundamental assault on our constitutional democracy and the rule of law.
Rice turned America’s intelligence agencies into a partisan weapon in a desperate effort to prevent Trump from achieving power. Rather than engaging in surveillance on our terrorist enemies, the deep state — the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and the Justice Departmen t— participated in a spying operation to advance the interests of the Democratic Party against a major political candidate and later the president-elect.
What Rice did was more than illegal; it’s unforgivable. She helped to completely politicize and corrupt our intelligence agencies. The result is that their credibility is in tatters.
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, is right. Rice should be under a subpoena to testify — under oath — in front of Congress.
She should be asked three questions. Why did she repeatedly request the unmasking of Trump associates? Did she leak their names and classified information to the media? And did Obama authorize or approve her spying operation?
My prediction: She will not answer and instead plead the Fifth. This will break the scandal wide open.
For the truth is Spygate goes much deeper — and higher — than Rice. The names she unmasked and the intelligence reports she disseminated were also sent to top Obama officials — former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, her deputy Ben Rhodes, FBI Director James Comey, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
All of these Obama hacks were part of the administration’s conspiracy to conduct espionage against Trump and his team. All of them should be subpoenaed to testify under oath. And all of them should be indicted and sent to prison.
They engaged in criminal, lawless behavior that is beyond the pale in a Western democracy.
The ultimate question that needs to be answered is: What did Obama know and when did he know it? It is impossible that senior members of his administration were involved in a dirty tricks campaign — a covert, illegal plot—to undermine and sabotage Trump’s team without Obama’s full knowledge and approval.
Rice is the first domino; once she falls, then the president’s men will follow; and when they fall, Obama will be left isolated and completely exposed. The buck stops with him. He is the Godfather of the Democratic crime family.
Rice’s spying operation has vindicated Trump. His claims about being the victim of Obama administration surveillance have been proven to be totally accurate. The real scandal of the 2016 campaign is not that Russia hacked the election, but that the Democrats did.
And that Rice is now in the crosshairs is divine justice. She is a political thug, an incorrigible liar who was known for being a rabid Obama loyalist — someone who didn’t mind getting her hands dirty to advance the regime’s agenda. She lied about Benghazi in an effort to cover-up the terrorist mass murder of four Americans. She boasted that Bowe Bergdahl, the traitor who defected to the Taliban, had served in Afghanistan with “honor and distinction” — even though several U.S. soldiers died searching for him after he deserted his post. If anyone deserves to go down, it’s her.
The irony is that the phony Russia-Trump collusion narrative now threatens to blow up in the media’s face. Having relentlessly pushed it, the story is boomeranging against them. Their goal was to delegitimize Trump. The result, however, could be the very opposite: the downfall of the man they propped up for eight long years.
The only one who is truly being unmasked is Obama.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at WorldTribune.com and the host of “The Kuhner Report” weekdays 12-3 pm EST on WRKO AM-680 in Boston.
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