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The Unmasking ‘Tool’ (i.e., Samantha Power) Revisited
Last November I posted here about that Pathetic UN Ambassador and how she was a useful plaything for her administration, exemplified by the fact that:
…either with or without her knowledge, her name was used to unmask over 260 American citizens…
For her sake, I hope most of that was without her knowledge.
Well, her services for Team Obama are back in the news:
Samantha Power claimed she never tried to unmask Michael Flynn, but records show she unmasked him 7 times.
This one is going to stick with here for a while. Following the link at Instapundit, you find her repeated denials:
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power testified to Congress in 2017 that she never sought to unmask records containing information about former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. … “I don’t recall making such a request,” Power said. … “Yes, I have no recollection of making a request related to General Flynn,” Power again claimed.
Being fully aware of the verified/certified liars that filled Team Obama, even under oath, something makes me want to believe her. I suspect she was used. Having been largely silenced and controlled for several years (as planned), her name was the one remaining useful tool — an expendable resource in the final months — for further servicing the Team.
Bonus: The article also provides some of the on-the-record virtuoso performance art with his trademark rhetorical crescendos — or is it just more lying — from Adam Schiff:
Published in General“And I just want to be clear that there’s no indication you ever made a request or that there necessarily was even a report on the subject. But I did want to get you on the record on that, because at the end of the day that’s sort of where this came from,” Schiff said.
Why do I suspect all the guilty parties will skate away from all this? Ask Lois Lerner, et al. I can’t even remember the names of all of them anymore. (Who was that other unbearably smug IRS guy?)
I understand nobody’s going to go after Obama or Clinton – it’s unspoken, but they are above the law. But how about Comey, Brennan, Clapper and the rest? We’re all choking on the smoke, so there’s a blaze somewhere.
There is no guilty. What was done, was done with the full authority of the government. This is how it works. The Democrat bureaucracy destroys and the rest may be a bit upset but it will pass.
When Obama was first elected I figured all the Clintonistas would be back. Much to my surprise, the Obama machine had a slew of much less competent people ready to go. Samantha Power, Van Jones, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, etc. It should no surprise that a cabal of such morons bungled their way into disaster, nor that a man of such limited achievement wouldn’t know any better.
I call it the Carol Browner Effect. (And partially blame Bush…reinforcement via dereliction of duty all in the name of getting along with people who hate you anyway.)
It appears she either lied under oath or was horribly wronged. One would think she would want to clear her name. The 260 unmaskings is not new news, yet I’ve seen nothing from her (or her camp or some non-reliably-incurious journalist) to do so. The average observer is left to conclude that she was a willing participant in the sullying of her name and character whether she new about it or not at the time.
I am trying to understand why you think the Obama people are incompetent? Seems they were to mostly achieve their goals, both legally and illegally and did not go to jail and are not in any danger of going to jail.
Just part of the soft power dividend.
There might yet be hope of legitimate redress of grievance, since Samantha Power might be telling the truth when she claims that she never requested unmasking. An(other) underreported story is that there were contractors given access to secure intelligence community databases that should have been off limits to contractors. It’s no stretch to conclude that Samantha Power’s credentials were used by others to search those secure databases, and to make requests for unmasking.
My theory is that the contractors were DNC plants. Whoever misused Samantha Power’s credentials for trafficking in classified material surely committed multiple felonies. Samantha Power likely committed a felony by permitting her credentials to be used by others, and by not taking measures to prevent such misuse once she became aware of it. Though let’s face it, she surely knew about it the whole time, probably suggested it herself.
This is the tip of another enormous iceberg. In 2016, the DNC was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Clinton campaign/Clinton Foundation, which was financing the insolvent DNC – and, recall, had veto power over DNC advertisement and public statements.
So the Democrat Party, acting through contractors who were given access (by, intter alia, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey) to the secure databases of the intelligence community, was operating as the government at the highest levels, spying on Americans and attempting the overthrow of the duly elected President of the United States.
We might yet get an indictment out of that.
Because none of their projects worked. He had a supermajority in both houses and managed a failing health care plan, his economic stimulus didn’t work, his foreign policy objectives all failed. It’s the eternal meeting between theory and reality.
The fact that so many progressives now support full blown socialism proves that results don’t really matter to them.
are you sure those were his goals? They furthered their agendas, increased their power, gave plenty of money to their cronies, screwed up the GOP power grab and had no scandals. Looks like all win too me.
I’m anxious to see the news media knocking on the doors of, say, those six Treasury Department officials who requested Flynn’s unmasking and asking them what was their interest? One of them is the wife of Maryland Democrat congressman Jamie “Professor Irwin Corey” Raskin.
Yes, I really think they believed their plans would work. No scandals is how they love to remember it, but in any normal world lots of careers would have ended.
Interesting:
[emphasis added]
True? I have no idea. But if it is even remotely close to the truth, the obvious question[s] mount rather quickly. (Note: Investigative Journalism is dead.)
For starters: Has any other UN Ambassador made any such request? If so, how many? With so many other USG entities directly charged with actual intelligence duties, why is the UN Ambassador making any such requests? Clearly something big was going on over at the UN, shouldn’t there be several books out by now (or at least leaks / brags in the media) from the players involved about these events?
A (potentially) informative exercise for some inquisitive young journalist: I would imagine that at least certain elements of the UN Ambassador’s schedule are a matter of public record. Certainly major travel, when in in NY vs. when in DC, when out of the country, major speeches, major meetings, etc. It just may be interesting to cross reference the dates of the 206 unmasking requests with the major items on her schedule during that last year in office. You’re welcome.
P.S. Did Ambassador Power (use) her USG email account and phone for all of her official business? Did she turn over all of her official communications upon leaving office? I seems it would be rather easy for her to prove that she did not make all of those requests? …any of those requests?
Yes it is hard to view them as incompetent. After all, they are certainly not without the trappings of their past offices, their pensions and they remain still quite respected inside the Democrat Criminal Enterprise.
Power’s was a non-denial denial. She said she did not recall making a request “regarding General Flynn.”
So if she just requested to unmask the unknown American on the domestic side of a call with some NAMED foreign person, she didn’t “lie – lie”. Just a coincidence! Whaddya know? It just happened to turn out to be General Flynn.
What a coincidence. /sarc
If it was, she would be the first person to demand an investigation into who was using her good name to
rat outunmask people.If she wasn’t doing the unmasking herself, she was letting others use her name . . .
The identity of Flynn regarding the Dec 29 call with Ambassador Kisylak came about through a means other than unmasking.
These are excerpts from Power’s interview of October 13, 2017 with the House intelligence committee:
Q from Trey Gowdy:
According to Adam Schiff, the number of unmasking requests from the U.S. mission to the U.N. increased markedly after her appointment in August 2013 (p.38).
After being shown the actual number of requests attributed to her, she responded:
Later Power added:
It should also be noted that Power was a member of the National Security Council like Susan Rice before her. Not all U.N. ambassadors are also NSC members and it meant her briefing book would contained more secret information than if she was solely ambassador.
This is the way our government works.