Like most Washington scandals, the frenzy over a senior Obama adviser unmasking identities of Trump officials is larger and smaller than both sides imagine.
President Donald Trump and his supporters say the former national security adviser, Susan Rice, engaged in domestic political spying when she asked for the identities of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance of foreign targets. (In March, Trump accused his predecessor on Twitter of illegally wiretapping Trump Tower, and he has since said the Rice story confirmed his initial tweet. It didn’t.)
Democrats and some Never Trump types say the fixation on Rice is a dangerous distraction from the real story: collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. If Rice unmasked names in intelligence reports (which she did), these Trump critics say she was justified because of the unique threat of Russian influence over the incoming president.
The Rice scandal is larger than either party’s
