she did not deny the unmasking. she acknowledged it. >> sean: she admits the unmasking of michael flynn and talk about on a lot of the shows. >>n than you look at the laws here.re being implicated there are multiple felony accounts but limit give you one one.e if she put this in motion and this what everybody needs to understand, susan rice unmasking this, if she didn't do this none of this would've happened. she did it. she put this whole issue and play. if she was working with others knowing they were going to distribute it,ng we can however she did it -- that's a conspiracy under the espionage. that's very, very serious. i will tell you something, she is sending out tweets, she sending all this information out. she needs to hire a really good criminal defense lawyer. i think she's in serious trouble. >> sean: she admitted the pace of surveilling trump increased after the election. and then this is more interesting, she admits the unmasking of general flynn took pace to my place but she said it wasn't political. >

, blumburg news -- sighting susan rice requesting the unmasking. >> unmasking is not the same as leaking because unmasked identity is only revealed to officials au officials authorized to know. let's bring in cnn's jim sciutto in washington. >> reporter: dave and christine a source close to ambassador susan rice tells me the claims she improperly unmasked the names of u.s. citizens caught up in surveillance is in a word false, coming from ambassador rice, but i've also spoken to former senior intelligence officials from both democratic and republican administrations to ask them about the process of unmasking, is it unusual, illegal? their answer is unanimous, not unusual, not illegal, the law allows this, and two for it to happen the official requests it but the u.s. intelligence committee has to approve that request. often times it is approved because the intelligence official wants to provide more information to the national security official they want to know more about what it means the significance, it is only shared between the briefer from the intelligence community and the offici

that there was unmasking of names. there was also talk about leaking the information which would be a felony. farkas then walked back the comments the day after we played them on this show, but the tape does not lie. that's not all. earlier today bright bart news unearthed a video from october 2016. here's dr. farkas where she even predicted the impeachment of trump if elected. how would she possibly think this? watch this. >> if donald trump were elected, i believe he would be impeached pretty quickly or somebody else would have to take over government. i'm not even joking. >> sean: what intelligence did she have to back that up? yesterday we had multiple reports that revealed that obama's national security adviser, susan rice, she was requesting that members of the trump transition team, their names be unmasked in raw intelligence reports. now today during an interview, she denied those claims. shocking. watch this. >> there were occasions when i would receive a report in which a u.s. person was referred to. name not

then she admitted to the unmasking.hy can you think of any circumstances white susan rice, national security advisor would need to unmask a trump transition team member or candidate or part of the candidacy team of donald trump? >> the reason is politics. whatever she says, her denial ts false flat number one. who's going to believe susan rice? i've said yesterday she is the liar chief here.g if you look at the facts that we know and she's acknowledged then unmasking that she was the principle that authorized and asked for the unmasking. if you ask yourself the timing of this is not just bizarre it's the real evidence.re this was other than politics, what could this possibly be, because between then and now nothing has happened. no information has gotten out that any other intelligencein agency has said that there's been any collusion between the trump campaign, trump campaign officials, and the russians. in fact, to the contrary. the president was right. he used the phrase and he undersold it. he said wiretaps which is

it depends on what susan rice did with the name, once unmasked and why she unmasked it.he government surveils conversations, she believes that the conversations involve a foreign power, she asks for a transcript, and gets it, and sees american person one, foreign age, and american person one foreign agent, she says that knowing who that american person one's name, and gets it that is unmasking this is legal. unmasking for another reason, politics eve evengence, curiousty, embarrassment that unlegal -- illegal. so if a conversation, between foreign agent and american one and between american one and american two, and number one is donald trump and number two is paul manafort, she sees what they are talking about, and she said to president, guess what trump and manafort were talking about. that is called espionage. the true name of american one. is protect by a top-secret status, the highest protect we have. revelation of top-secrets, for an improper purpose or reckless handling of top-secret as hillary clinton of accused of doing with her e-mail is a felony, the answer to

she said she unmask it. at this point, everybody knew the russians, facts and rumors about russian involvement in the presidential election. of course, unmask everybody or anybody. >> dana: she said she knew nothing about it. >> bob: i think she was referring to the leaking. >> eric: i was surprised to see the reports from chairman nunes on that account. i know nothing about this. >> kimberly: lying. >> bob: what was she talking about? what was nunes talking about? >> eric: the unmasking. >> bob: how do we know that? >> dana: i think that is fact, bob. >> bob: a couple people were unmasked. >> eric: she said she had no knowledge of any of it happenin happening. now we know she demanded these names be unmasked. >> bob: i noticed in the trump campaign, former military guy through a back channel to putin for trump. did you notice that story? >> greg: what about back channels to iran? why is it okay for obama to metal? >> bob: this is talking about the election. >> greg: and we've never done that with israel? we

we have to remember it's not really a conversation about unmasking. it's a conversation in the broader sense about russian interference and whether americans got picked up on collection about russia. so yes, the president obviously would be kept up to speed on that larger investigation. >> martha: though we've been told what devin nunes saw has nothing to do with russia. final thought, pete, and then we have to go. >> what you'll find is this is what people on the left and right were most worried about from 2001 and 2009. big data, big government creating an opportunity for massive abuse. and it appears that may be what we're starting the road we're starting to go down and that has huge implications for our intelligence community moving down the road. >> all right. thank you, both for being here. we'll see you later. also breaks this evening, fbi director comey finds he's under the microscope. we have new questions about the potential involve many with the british official who put together the all right on donald trump. we'll be back with more. so you

susan rice was doing unmasking, there may be other people there are doing the unmasking too. >> it was described to me today as sort of looking behind the curtain, you don't know who's behind the curtain, until you lift it. and that if you have, and it was described to me last week that these conversations were diplomat to diplomat largely. and so if they're talking about something and they mention citizen a, and it involves national security, then whoever it is is going to unmask it because they're trying to understand the context and the meaning and the importance of this conversation. so only when you lift that veil, do you really know who it is. >> how did that information leak out to the reporter and the leaking is a whole other issue, which mike has raised. we have to leave it there. there's more to talk about, gloria, we're going to have more to talk about with you, including the latest on the president's first supreme court nominee and why getting him confi confirmed. >>> now president son-in-law jared kushner is on a mission to iraq. and the way officials in washington are rea

unmasking is not the same as leaking.ealed to officials only authorized to know. >>> the leak of the susan rice information has the president trying to stir the pot. more on unmasking and response from susan rice let's bring in jim sciutto. >> reporter: a source close to susan rice tells me the claims she improperly unmasking names of u.s. sincitizens caught up i surveillance is false coming from ambassador rice, but i've talked to both democratic and republican administration to ask about unmasking, one they say the law allows it, two, for it to happen the official requests it but the u.s. intelligence committee has to approve the request, often times it is approved because that official wants to provide more information, as they're reading intelligence report they want to know more about what it means, that information is only shared between the briefer from the intelligence community and that official, it's not more widely disseminated. it's possible that the official could do that him or herself, but by nature only ex

unmasking is not wiretapping. unmasking is not leaking. so it allows trump supporters and allies to build this narrative there was this wild surveillance of trump and his associates. there were conversations between fisa targets and other people foreigners or trump associates themselves during which names of trump campaign officials, et cetera, family members, were caught up in this. it's the wide dissemination that is a problem, potentially a crime. susan rice has a credibility problem. devin nunes has a credibility problem. so this is very muddied waters here at this point. but it's important for people to know that what jim points out in his reporting, this is not only legal, like it or not, it's not even unusual, is really that's the fundamental headline here and the bottom line. >> so then jim, take it one step further for us, what a.b. just raised, do we know how widely susan rice disseminated the name she asked to be unmasked or revealed to her? >> we don't know that. this is the thing described to me by various officials. when unma

the unmasking itself legal? >> we can listen to devin nunes who began all of this with his visi visit to the white house. he told us it's all legal. the issue is the white house won't tell us, devin nunes and adam schiff won't tell us what the intelligence is about and we won't know if there's a real issue until we learn more about the these documents. >> thank you very much. >>> the chairman of the house investigation, the republican devin nunes is saying that all of this intelligence gathering was legal. his issue, of course, is with the leaking of the information within it. and this news tonight comes as democrats accused president trump and the white house of creating a smoke screen to distract from possible evidence of conclusion with russia. >> reporter: tonight russia's meddling in the election is taking shape. the house panel once again meeting after weeks of turmoil. but the white house and republicans now raising new questions over whether the identity of any trump associates were improperly revealed o

seizing on susan rice request to unmask. tweeting he was spied on before the nomination and calling it a crooked scheme. allegations that she did anything unusual or improper false. the white house blasting the media for ignoring the ginned up scandal. >> media standpoint lack of interest in public revelations. >> as officials stressed unmasking names in intelligence reports is a routine procedure, different from leaking to the press. >> there's a procedures you have to go through, lawyers look over your shoulder. nothing unusual about unmasking. >> laltest justification a far cry from president trump's initial claim one month area that president obama wiretapped trump tower, an accusation that mr. trump has since attempted to redefine. and justify. >> even after his own fbi director refused the claim. >> i think you'll find interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks. >> last week tried to distort comments about evelyn farkas. >> farkas said her comments wildly misinterpreted. the week before that hous

to allow for more leniency and unmasking. it wasn't like -- it's almost like it was legalized without us knowing it.sk the unmasking was allowed to occur. in 2011, then in 2015 they relaxed the law even more. what they were able to do and we know it went to susan rice. we know former cia director john brennan was allowed to do this and clapper. they had the ability to request unmasked american foreign to foreign raw intelligence. highly classified. >> sean: even if it was legitimate intelligence gathering, they are using that as a means to spy on innocent americans without the benefit of a warrant. a good way to put it. >> yes, that's certainly what intelligent sources are saying. they are saying look, this is not only about the unmasking. it's about why did they specifically unmask -- susan rice in particular -- at this point, from july, all the way back to july -- >> sean: what would be the reason short of they want to use they want to use intelligence gathering as a ruse to get to the trump campaign to get to trump? >> if

they are saying look, this is not about the unmasking only. it's about why did they specifically unmask -- susan rice in particular -- at this point, from july, all the way back to july -- because >> sean: will would be the reason short of they want to use they want to use intelligence gathering as a ruse to get to the trump campaign to get to trump? >> if it goes back to july, these are the questions you have to ask. according to the sources i've spoken with, it goes back to july. it happened again and november and it happened exponentially in november through january. they were looking at this. other sources we have spoken to just recently as of today have said these are high-level senior intelligence sources, these questions need to be asked. >> sean: standard operating procedures is you do not identify the identity of an american because you don't have a warrant for that. standard operating procedure is when you are writing up a report, they would usually put in american and identify nobody but in this specific case, in these cases, we hav

so the idea that she's unmasking trump people, no they're unmasking themselves because they're talking with people under foreign intelligence wiret wiretap. >> you're not arguing that it was inappropriate for susan rice or some senior official to request someone be unmasked in order to understand. what you're arguing is, how did they use that information? are they then using it for political purposes by leaking it, is that correct? >> i'm actually arguing both. look, the unmasking is not a crime, but these names are masked for a reason, because frivolous unmasking is a backdoor to domestic surveillance. >> but you don't know whether it's frivolous or not. >> but we shouldn't jump to the conclusion, i think the other panelists are jumping to the conclusion that this was all done on the up and up. but we know for a fact that this information was used illegally. i mean it was a crime, this leaking of flynn's name and it was a political crime. and so this is taking place in a certain context, we have to be worried about it. >> if i could just add for clarity there, when i have been speakin

' unmasking's. what i think is most striking about the interview today, she said it was not uncommon for her to ask for these kinds of unmasking's. everyone i have talked to with the experience this says such unmasking would be uncommon. how often did she do this? and what other circumstances? what i think is so striking about this is susan rice is a well-known cereal prevaricate her. she's been copped in an obvious lie -- caught in an obvious lie. how is it that reporters aren't going nuts asking her questions about this. why is she lying? why did she lie about this? >> bret: howard kurtz could do a whole segment on who is covering this. >> interesting experience with one of our reporters today on capitol hill asking what i think are the obvious questions. given the news in the story yesterday, eli lake, obvious questions to ask. why did she say a squat? how often does she do it? members of the intelligence committee asking these question questions. of the reporters asking questions of the same tim

unmasking is not leaking. unmasking is not wiretapping.t is not surveillance and while devin nunes lied about this, president trump lied about it, susan rice lied about it. this revelation could be anything from a scandal to a crime. should be a separate investigation. who leaked it? was the unmasking legal? that's different from an allegation that president obama ordered wiretapping. it's not actually a story. it's about two separate things and they may be two separate wrongs. unmasking is not wiretapping and not leaking. it's the leaking that's a problem. that's a crime. >> james: we don't have time to parse out all the lies but what was the lie you are saying devin nunes. >> he lied to wolf blitzer and eli lake about his sources. >> i think that's unfair. he was talking about the white house confirming -- >> he said he had a source. he did not. he had a white house source. you and you can prove that in addition to the white house officials who allowed him on the ground, he did not have an intelligence community source. >> eli lake wrote

what if dick cheney unmasked, you know, asked several times for intel agencies to unmask the name ofree with mr. tyler, susan rice is a pretty convenient bad actor in this thing because she fulfills a lot of criteria to the right so -- >> but, at the same time, she did, apparently, if you believe bloomberg, she was the one that asked for several names to be unmasked. >> you always flip these things. if it were president hillary clinton and her national security adviser had done with general flynn is accused of doing, what would people say about that? >> probably nothing. >> no, no, no, no, no. >> they ran him out of town. >> i guess, mike, the question is, people are glad, most people i know are glad general flynn is gone, right? >> yeah. >> what if it had not been general flynn? what if it was somebody as beloved and respected like colin powell who was unmasked, then run out of town? >> everything you have been talking about i agree with. there's a huge civil liberties issue at stake here. i want to find out more about the story. the stuff about flynn, we know enough about flynn to

give examples of why as national security advisor she would need to unmask information. do you think that goes any distance to assuage anybody? you didn't trust her before, you don't trust her now? >> it's all referencing. it's past references. it's not anything to do with its current situation, and i myself am fresh off capitol hill where we were talking to a number of senators coming out of -- asking them about this very issue, and nobody had any specifics to suggest that susan rice did anything wrong in terms of what a national security advisor would do in reviewing routine intelligence and unmasking, and i think it's very important that you are drawing that bright line between unmasking and actually leaking because if we take her at her word, she had nothing to do with that washington post reporter or any other reports in terms of leaking. in terms of unmasking, you are doing that to a very small circle within the intelligence community, and i think just like the wiretapping claim that was made, the irony here is that if it happened, it would have had to have been ap

suture rice admitting there was unmasking, i didn't leak what was unmasked.ed by susan rice, key point there. and all of a sudden the crazy idea that there was surveillance and unmasking is not so crazy. instead they are saying well, susan rice was just doing her job. a month ago you were saying there is no way this happened. no way. ainsley: that's why if she goes under oath. people can say all right, you are saying you didn't leak, then who did? who had access? when you unmasked and you saw general kelly's came in or whoever it was that was unmasked then who saw that information with you? if you didn't do the leaking who did? because we need to figure it out. ed: follow up what did president obama know? brian: that would have been a good follow up that didn't happen yesterday. fascinating interview with bill o'reilly last night. for the first time malia zimmerman went on camera, she is adam housley's producer who helped break this story and bring it into the forefront. she says we might have it backwards. listen. >> this whole thing was really about from wh

you've always got to be careful with unmasking. but again, there is also an absolute procedure that if someone is trying to find intel and it says mark warner talks to wolf blitzer, and wolf blitzer is under some level of investigation, and an intel person says, we ought to figure out who that guy talking to wolf was, there is an appropriate procedure to unmask another name, in this if it was mark warner. again, i don't want to comment on hearsay at this point. we've tried to do this without chasing whatever happens to be the story du jour. we're trying to do this in a bipartisan process. at the end of the day we all need to step back, take a breath, and realize this is about russians interfering massively in our election, this time to help one candidate, mr. trump, next time it could help somebody on the other side. and we all ought to be concerned about it as policymakers and as americans. >> i want to get to that in a moment. but just one final question on this part, have you seen any evidence at all that president obama's natio

but what was unmasked. there are russian villains playing footsys with the president's team. >> possibly. >> let's talk about that. >> here's your chance. sgl i think today's interview with susan rice was a complete disaster. i can't believe how unprepared ms. rice was and the base of questions that she wouldn't answer like would she testify. a couple weeks ago she said she knew nothing about the unmasking of names and it wasn't in generalty. >> today was a generalty. and she doesn't -- listen -- she doesn't know the information that devin nunes has so how would she know specifically what she's talking about. >> to nothing to sometimes it waus necessary. as if she found this unmasking document that would get pinned to her lapel before she left her house like mittens on a wintry morning. and when we talked about the unmasking, she was quick to say she wasn't doing any of the unmasking or the administration wasn't doing any of the unmasking for political purposes but she was involved not once, not twice as we

former obama national security adviser susan rice, asked to unmask the names of trump transition officials, caught up. and we're learning that surveillance went on for months, purely for partisan purposes. we take that up with house judiciary committee member congressman john desan 'tis and ambassador john bolton. >> obstructist dems have the votes to filibuster, so republicans are likely to go nuclear. >> it is pathetic. they are so stupid they think -- we have no alternative to do what has to be done. lou: leonard leo is joining us tonight. and terrorism in russia. a bomb blast tearing through a subway train in st. petersberg, at least 11 people killed and 50 wounded, police suspect that terrorist attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, linked to radical islamists. lou: good evening tonight there are charges of widespread wrong doing in the obama administration. specifically sources naming former national security adviser susan rice as highest ranking official to call for the unmasking, that is the identification of trump transition officials caught in obama administration's nsa surv

. >>> unmasked charade. accused of unmasking trump associates. former national security adviser susan rice says she never leaked anything and never used intelligence for political purposes. >>> health care rebill, the trump white house tries once more to persuade conservatives going along with a plan to replace obamacare but any chance that conservatives may consider a nonstarter foreanybody else? >> and north korea's kim jong-un's regime linked to cyber attacks in banks around the world. are the funds used to fund nuclear and missile program? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in the "the situation room." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> breaking news. the house and senate intelligence committees both go behind closed doors as new investments come to light in their probes of russian meddling in the u.s. election. a congressional intelligence source says investigators are looking into the timing of meetings between people close to donald trump and russian officials during the transition and whether they talked about easing us u sanctions. the r

but she is denying any unmasking on her part was done for political purposes.ct, here she is on another cable network just a short time ago. watch. >> we only do it to protect the american people, to do our jobs inhe nional rity quell realm. that is the only rean. >> within that process and within the context of the trump campaign, the trump transition, did you seek the names of people involved in -- did you unmask the names of people involved in the trump transition, the trump campaign, people surrounding the president-elect? >> let me -- >> in order to spy on them? >> absolutely not for any political purposes to spy, expose anything -- >> did you leak the name of mike flynn? >> i leaked nothing to nobody. trish: nothing to nobody, so she says. but, you know, she doesn't exactly have the best track record, right? given her benghazi history? this is a woman who was spinning the obama administration's narrative on that one, saying it was all about a film that incited that terror are attack. and then we, of course, learned otherwise. two weeks ago she was out on

@foxnews is unmasking biz reporting big news. source, official behind unmasking is high up. notn intel official associate with russia. trump team spied on before he was nominated. if this is true, it does not get much bigger. would be sad for u.s." guest: this foxnews report cites one congressional source familiar with the investigation, who says that devin nunes, chairman of the house intelligence committee, knows who the official was responsible for the unmasking. i think we have to back up a few steps. first of all, there is nothing necessarily improper with the unmasking of names of president trump or transition officials. number of contexts in which that would be completely appropriate. the guidelines on unmasking say if it is publicly available information, just information that anyone would know by reading a newspaper, those names don't have to be minimized. also, it could be important for intelligence officials to know what efforts that foreign nationals were making, what they knew about trump, and what the intelligence they were trying to get on the united states an

what's the standard for the unmasking? i don't know what it is. to brush aside the merits of having a debate about this or whether no question what she did was legal, but should she talk about what the standards would be and what they were during the obama era? >> on the big picture, really for the first time they managed during this moment and with the issue at hand with russia collusion and interference in the election to and you were very good and the senator i thought was very good in terms of talking about the remaining fundamental issue. from the point of view from the trump white house which has not had good days, this was a better day than most. >> that's why we compared it to getting temporary relief. they made the pain go away today. susan rice is a subpoenaed witness in front of the senate intel committee can talk about what's in those. we have a cross cutting scandal allegation and not just one size playing offense and playing defense, but both of them are in different universes and in the right world, the story is illegal legitimate a

you know, when she was unmasking it?at's a false statement, molly. >> did she disseminate the information as well? is there any tie between this and the campaign. >> that's fake news, dana. >> i understand susan rice said things and has reputation for dishonesty and being careful how she parses things. >> molly, that doesn't give you the right to recite fake news. >> dana: how is it fake. >> susan rice cannot unmask anyone. she can request. >> she requested the unmasking. that in itself o requesting the unmasking is very rare thing for someone in her position to do. >> let's get the story straight. >> dana: robert, let her finish. >> the fact that the request did not help elsewhere from places where investigations actually take place. that the unmavericked information deal with politics and not active investigations these are all questions that journalists should be getting to the 3w09 of before they decide not to cover the story. >> molly. >> the media should be covering this story not covering it up. >> molly, your sta

so what else did susan rice said about this so-called unmasking? >> bill, when is it not a mouthful to digest everything that happened here daily? interesting to look as you point out, the difference between what she said today compared to the pbs interview on march 22 when there was an utter denial of anything that devin nunes was talking about. today no denial that she's the person that asked for the names to be unmasked in intelligence reports but that firm denial that any of this was done for political purposes or she leaked any one's name. listen here. >> it's in that process and within the context of the trump campaign, the trump transition, did you seek the names of people involved in -- did you unmask the names of people involved in the trump transition, the trump campaign, people surrounding the president-elect in order to spy on them? >> absolutely -- absolutely not for any political purposes, to spy, expose, anything. >> so the white house suggesting that most of the media is not giving this the sense of importance that the white house t

in this case, they were unmasked and we know from the story today that susan rice requested the unmasking of some of them. you have to look at what are the criteria for unmasking? there are two basic criteria. one, you need to know the name of the u.s. citizen in order to understand the intelligence or two, does the intelligence suggest that the u.s. citizen may be involved in some criminal activity? we know now from director comey of the fbi that there is an ongoing criminal investigation of the trump campaign and the cooperation between trump officials and russia. there could be a very good reason for this unmasking. >> tucker: there might be. is there a good reason for the spying that had nothing to do with the russia investigation? it encompassed a lot of surveillance of trump and his associates. what could possibly be the justification of that? >> we don't know that. that hasn't come out. >> tucker: fox news is reporting that. a lot of this material had nothing at all to do with that at russia investigation. again, in the middle of a presidential campaign, when you have one party whi

some unmasked not associated with russia. trump team spied on before he was nominated, if this is true, does not get much bigger, would e sad for the united states. >> guest: yeah, and the president says this is big news. i have to say, it's a little hard to know if that's true. this fox news report cites one congressional source familiar with the investigation who says that devin nunes, the house intelligence committee chairman, knows who the official was responsible for the unmasking. i think we have to back up a few steps. first of all, there's nothing necessarily improper with the unmasking of president trump or a transition official. there are any number of contexts in which that's completely appropriate. one says if it's just information that anyone would know by reading the newspapers anyway, those names don't have to be minimized. and also, it's important -- i can understand, it could be important for intelligence officials to know what efforts that foreign nationals were making to -- what they knew about trump and wh

and once if a person is unmasked, that's not a "reply all."back to the senior official who made that request. it is not released on a wide basis. so, look, they're desperate at this point in time to try to make this something that it isn't. they're trying to take the camera off the news that's coming out every day on a broader and broader investigation. whether there's more dots and more of the dots are being connected. >> when do you expect to see fbi director james comey back on the witness stand for you guys? >> it is clearly at this time up to chairman nunes. we were ready. we're ready this week. the house is out of session for two weeks. we'd like to start the week we get back with a fresh start. >> illinois democratic congressman mike quigley, thank you for your time, sir. >> thank you. >>> now let's check today's microsoft pulse question. do you believe susan rice when she says it is absolutely false that the obama administration used intel for political purposes? not much change from a little bit earlier. 88% of you say, yes, you do be

on unmasking, you only unmasking when it's a matter of national security or high important. it appears that this was going on for over a year and it had nothing to do with russia or national security matters. i think there's a heck of a lot of questions now that are going to be offered -- asked on both sides. >> van jones, what do you make of what the congressman said? >> well, first of all, i just can't understand what the problem here is. she's the national security adviser. her job is to give advice. in order to give advice, she has to have information. to get the information, she's got to ask questions. she's basically doing her job. all that's been exposed she's doing her job. if somebody else is leaking it to the press, that's another thing. just to say she's controversial in the right wing media so therefore there's some big deal because it's her. any national security adviser advising the president has to ask questions about the information that they get. that's all that she's doing. the rest of this stuff is just a bunch of nonsense trying to divert attention from w

the unmasker has been unmasked.ecurity advisor to barack obama, susan rice, high level official in the administration, requested to unmask the names of trump officials indicate up in surveillance. joining us right now is bloomberg news columnist eli lake who broke the news with the name yesterday. eli, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me on. steve: what would be the need to unmask other than political curiosity. >> if you knew of an ongoing terrorist plot there. there was some type of terrorist plot and neated to unmask server or institution being used taken over to launch that attack. steve: none of that applies to the trump team. >> right. and then e of course, like because it's a little bit muddy at this point devin nunes said the reports he saw didn't have anything to do with russia. i was unable to confirm that too. there was ongoing fbi counter intelligence probe on russia and trump. that would be reason to do it. the real scandal here is that the bar is so lowe low just to show there is a foreign i

>> shannon: she was unmasking people's names.ould have been with a legitimate reason but if she wasn't or shared or leaked the name and we're not saying she is -- >> that happens every day. >> shannon: it's potentially a felony. >> i have to fact check david on something the baseball season started sunday not monday. this is a very serious matter. if the shoe were on the other foot and it was scooter libby working for dick chenney there'd be outrage. let's get to the fact of russia. the surveillance usually the way unmasking happens it's the intelligence agencies themselves that do it. they're very careful about it and they do it only to better understand the context of the conversation from the foreign targets. was susan rice abiding by it? let's learn more. she was unmasking names to spread them throughout the bureaucracy to be leaked later. >> there's a mainstream press reporting "the new york times" this is what obama officials did. >> i want my friends on the right to react to this. >> shannon: it's about susan rice. we can

it was not clear how rice knew to ask for the names to be unmasked.e party line vote the senate judiciary committee has endorsed judge neil gorsuch for the supreme court the supreme court setting up a senate showdown. democrats have enough votes to filibuster the nomination but republicans will most likely is the so-called nuclear option so gorsuch could be approved with the majority vote. verizon will create a new company called oath after it completes its acquisition of yahoo!. oath will oversee aol and yahoo!. marissa mayer not expected to join the new company. futures point to another. three down days in a row. don't futures down 57. s&p futures on seven. at the liquor was happening right now. nicole: basing his day. professor bryan brandenburg joining us live on the side. chair at the kings college in manhattan. thank you are joining us. you're here this morning. so many topics to cover. president upon the national security by sir susan rice is one who requested the identity of the trump transition officials be unmasked for intelligence reports a

you would unmask those names. you don't need to go susan rice to do it. >> by the way, james comey has been investigating that very issue since july of last year, stow did have the attention of the fbi and probably the attention of the white house as well. trish: so i would only ask you, why wouldn't they unmask it. >> she had the right to unmask for whatever reason or purpose. you want to call her before hearings to say why did do you it? she said not for political purposes, we don't know. how much do we really know? we do not know. trish: more stories, can you admit, and see you in a little bit. >> i hate admitting things. trish: she should get through the and testify? >> i think she has to explain herself, i think if she is called in for an interview or testimony, i'm sure she'll be well prepared. i got to tell you, i think this is a distraction and won't be anything to this because she knows better, regardless what you think, she is very well respected as national security adviser. trish: you are in agreement

asmehow it went from masked to unmasked. it was unmasked by a a white hoe operative who shouldn't be investigating anything. the cia, fbi, nsa. >> mike flynn was forced to resign because of his shady dealings with the russians. >> his name being leaked. >> bill: he wasn't upfront with pence but that's a different issue. the issue now is the truth about the two situations. let me recap because it's hard to really figure these two out. you say that you want to know what susan rice did or did not do. you say that. >> i do say it and the reason i say it is her motive is everything in this case. in other words, it is not a crime to unmask someone's name if you are working with intelligence. >> it's what you do with you. >> it's why what you do with it. >> if she disseminated that name to someone wasn't clear for political purpose. >> anybody wasn't clear. >> now you claim on this program that you are as interested to know if there were trump people stcolluding with the russians to influence the election right? i >> yes.. >> so yo

but what we know is someone was unmasked. you guys have moved this into leaking. >> i think you're very confused about what unmasking is. >> we know a felony was committed to jeff's point with a criminal penalty of up to ten years. >> there's one thing we know about these documents. the only thing we know about these documents, two things. >> devin nunes says this has nothing to do with russia. >> it has to do with intendal surveillance under the obama administration. >> it has nothing to do with russia. we got to take a break. >>> up next we're going to talk more about the president's defense of bill o'reilly, and the context to it. pain used to shut me down during pick-up games. but with odor free blue-emu continuous pain relief spray, i can box out any muscle or joint pain immediately. blue-emu continuous pain relief spray, it works fast and you won't stink. you won't see these folks they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue. how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages

she can unmask it. that just means that she gets to see it. has to approve that unmasking, based on two crite a criteria, whether it would help her understand the report more, it's a whole process that gets logged in a computer. the only reason we know about this is that the white house went to the computer and said oh, susan rice was making this request. if this was a big abuse, i happen to believe that if this was abuse of unmasking-- >> i don't think the fact that she logged it means she did anything wrong. the question for a lot of people who are concerned about the behavior of some of the people in our government, in terms of violating privacy in terms of surveillance. eli lake reported that it was dozens of requests. why did she have to do this? >> was it politically motivated or not? and i think that's a reasonable thing to ask. and we don't know that it was. >> one of the several people who have seen it all have said two things, one that it's not related to russia and two that it's not illegal that he saw. >> keep our eye on the ball h

in her interview she essentially admitted, unmasked or asked intel agencies to unmask some. stuff.ut when asked the same question, whether she any idea unmasking in some much these areas on pbs a couple weeks ago, here is what she said. >> i know nothing about this. i was surprised to see reports from chairman nunes on that count. david: consistency there. >> notice, andrea mitchell said to her, have you unmasked for political reasons? her reason was i did not unmask for political reasons, there is parsing of words going on. there is something going on. there is definitely something going on here. how did the media react? ignored it after saying for so long that donald trump had no grounds to say what he was saying. cnn, they're the best, cnn has been on a jihad attacking media for reporting the story. david: right. >> if you're donald trump, no wonder you call them fake news. no wonder you attack them every single day. the public seen this, that media make no every whatsoever to be fair and balanced. none whatsoever. david: we'll certainly stay on the story. there are two russian

as ambassador might they incriminate themselves if they unmask the name? >> this is not that complicated, she is not under risk. this is how you do that information, that is when you see an intelligence product that says an american official is involved in undermining the president's initiative to establish sanctions against russia there is a standard question any national security adviser would have. who is that american official or that american citizen who is undermining the president's initiative? don, this is not that difficult. it happens every day in the intelligence business. and this is what she should have done. who was involved in talking to the russians in a way that suggests that they want to undermine the sitting president's ability to establish sanctions against the russians? very simple. >> but mark, this is a diversion from the russia story, because so far we've seen no evidence she has done anything improper and it seems like an effort to tar and feather her to make the original truth a lie, with a tweet by the president. >> there is a si