Mainstream Media Turning a Blind Eye to Susan Rice Bombshell?
WASHINGTON -- Could holdovers from the Obama administration be part of a so-called deep state to tear down the president? White House officials say yes.
Last month, White House lawyers discovered that Susan Rice, the former national security advisor for the Obama administration, asked for the names of Americans who had been covered in U.S. intelligence gathering. Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake reports they included members of President Donald Trump's team.
Normally, the names of Americans are kept private, but Lake reports that Rice repeatedly tried to find out their identities.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is calling reports of Rice's actions a "smoking gun."
"I don't think we should discount how big a deal it was that Susan Rice was looking at these, and she needs to be asked: Did President Obama ask her to do this? Was this a directive from President Obama?" Fox News quoted Paul.
The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group reports that former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova says Rice ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce "detailed spreadsheets" of legal phone calls involving Trump and his aides when Trump was running for president.
However, Rice told NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell Tuesday that those allegations are "false."
DiGenova said Rice's denial "would come as quite a surprise to the government officials who have reviewed dozens of those spreadsheets," according to The Daily Caller.
Congressman Scott Taylor, R-Va., told CBN News, "It's not unique for them to request information on U.S. citizens for potential problems there, but it's been widely reported on Susan Rice that she made numerous, repeated requests for President Trump and his associates and that actually increased post election. That is unique. That's not done all the time."
And he's calling for Rice to testify before the House and Senate. Watch his full remarks below:
"I think it's troubling. I'm not prepared to say that she absolutely did wrongdoing at this moment, but I think that she should come and testify before the intelligence committee, as well as for the House and the Senate for an investigation because it's very concerning to me and I imagine many Americans," continued Taylor.
"There has to be a firewall between national security and partisan politics," he cautioned.
Watch Congressman Scott Taylor's full remarks below:
Meanwhile, the news is drawing charges of bias against the mainstream media regarding their limited of coverage on the revelations.
"I do think that it's interesting, the level, or lack thereof, of interest in this subject," White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Monday.
It's a suspicion Crisis Magazine columnist George Neumayr echoed in a recent op-ed for The American Spectator.
"The media's biased coverage of Obamagate continues to shift. First, reporters feigned outrage that Trump would dare to say that the saintly Barack Obama had spied on him," he charged.
"Never mind that Trump's assertion sparked off their own reporting — reports clearly based on criminal leaks from Obama aides spying on Trump," he continued. "But now reporters are pursuing a new line of attack against Trump, which can be translated as: Yes, Obama spied on you — and good for him."
