Critics have long accused former President Barack Obama’s administration of illegally spying on U.S. citizens. Monday, the first domino from the Obama administration could finally tumble.
Ben Rhodes, a top Obama administration insider, was named a “person of interest” in the investigation of the unmasking scandal on Aug. 1.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes asked the National Security Agency head, Adm. Michael Rogers, to reveal “the total number of unmasking requests made by” Rhodes during the 2016 presidential election.
The documents are set to be delivered on Monday, Aug. 21. Should they contain evidence that Rhodes used his position to illegally identify Americans in intelligence documents, it could lead to an immediate arrest.
“Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, ex-National Security Adviser Susan Rice and former CIA Director John Brennan previously had been named in requests from the House Committee. Brennan and Rice have admitted to issuing unmasking requests, but said the asks occurred only as part of their official duties,” Fox News reported. “Power and Rhodes both would have had legal authority to unmask U.S. citizens; however, Nunes is looking into whether those requests were abused or politically motivated.”
Rhodes was such a central figure in the Obama administration, he once bragged that he didn’t “know anymore where I begin and Obama ends.”
Should sufficient evidence be uncovered by the House’s investigation that Rhodes misused his powers for political gain, an arrest would surely follow — and putting the handcuffs on such a high profile Washington insider would send shock waves throughout Capitol Hill.
It’s not a stretch to assume Rhodes illegally played politics with sensitive government information, critics say. According to The Free Beacon, in 2008 Rhodes was seemingly denied an interim high-level security clearance by the FBI for unknown reasons.
Nunes had previously written that the House Intelligence Committee had “found evidence that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information.”
That’s not all Rhodes may be in trouble for, either. While he could theoretically avoid trial in the unmasking scandal by claiming executive privileged, he’s also been accused of being the main source of the illegal leaks in President Donald Trump’s administration.
In July, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis labeled Rhodes as the primary source of the leaks and “urged the House Intelligence Committee to call Rhodes and other former Obama officials to testify publicly about any role they may be playing in spreading classified information to reporters,” according to Zero Hedge.
“I think Congress and some members of the Intelligence Committee can call Ben Rhodes to testify … He may be able to invoke executive privilege from when Obama was president but he definitely can’t do that in any interactions he’s had since then,” DeSantis said.
Comment “LOCK THEM UP!” below if you think Barack Obama’s whole administration should be prosecuted.
— The Horn editorial team