Susan Rice, the national security adviser under former President Barack Obama, has agreed to testify in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee as part of its ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, CNN reported Thursday.
President Donald Trump and Republicans on the committee have accused Obama administration officials, including Rice, of improperly “unmasking” the names of Trump transition associates that came up in classified intelligence reports.
Rice has insisted that there was “not anything political” about her actions and that she “leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would.” National security experts previously told TPM that it was her job to look into the extent of Russia’s interference in the election, and that knowing the identities of U.S. persons included in intelligence reports would have allowed Obama administration officials to see if those individuals engaged in inappropriate behavior. Rice would have had to run her requests past the National Security Agency, and would not have been able to know that the unmasked individuals were associated with the Trump campaign until the names were revealed.
In March, the House committee’s chair, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), embarked on a trip to the White House to review intelligence related to unmasking and subsequently held a series of press conferences where he said he was “troubled” by what he saw. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who viewed the same reports told various news outlets that they did not see anything improper.
Nunes temporarily stepped aside from the Russia investigation in April, after he became the subject of a House Ethics Committee probe into whether he revealed classified information.
As Nunes has made plain in recent interviews, he never actually recused himself from the probe and insists he is “fully read-in” on his committee’s activities on Russia.
“I can do whatever I want, I’m the chairman of the committee,” Nunes told CNN this week.
