Rand Paul on Flynn 'unmasking'
Rand Paul joins Jesse Watters to discuss the Michael Flynn 'unmasking' controversy.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Saturday called the requests for "unmasking" Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn by a large number of Obama officials "crazy" and called for reform, saying the process is a way to skirt the Constitution.
"This 'unmasking' process, it’s about bad actors, we had bad actors Joe Biden and the inner circle of Obama, I think snooping for political dirt and trying to damage their political opponent," Paul said on "Watters' World" Saturday. "But it’s worse than that, 'unmasking' is so rampant that it’s done by the thousands by all administrations. But it’s a backdoor way around the Constitution."
Several top Obama administration officials had purportedly requested to "unmask" the identity of the former national security adviser, according to a list of names from the controversial process made public on Wednesday.
The roster features top-ranking figures that include then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper and Obama's then-Chief of Staff Denis McDonough.
"Unmasking" occurs after U.S. citizens' conversations are incidentally picked up in conversations with foreign officials who are being monitored by the intelligence community. The U.S. citizens' identities are supposed to be protected if their participation is incidental and no wrongdoing is suspected. However, officials can determine the U.S. citizens' names through a process that is supposed to safeguard their rights. In the typical process, when officials are requesting the "unmasking" of an American, they do not necessarily know the identity of the person in advance.
Paul made his case Saturday as to why the situation in question violated the Constitution.
"If the government wants to listen to your phone calls or my phone calls, the Constitution says they have to have probable cause that we committed a crime, they have to take our name and reasons to a judge," Paul explained. "They have to present that, and I am allowed to have a lawyer on the opposite side, maybe not exactly at the beginning of the eavesdropping. But at some point and time, I can protest it. But [in] these secret courts there’s no protesting, no one even tells you they have listened to your phone calls. And so it’s an end-run around the Constitution."
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The senator also called for reform on the issue.
"But to have two dozen Obama administration [officials] 'unmask' him," Paul said, referring to Flynn. "I mean, this is crazy and we have to reform the 'unmasking,' not only get rid of the bad people in government who misuse government. We need to reform the processes so that so many of these easy ways of listening to phone calls, we don’t snatch up Americans in this."
Fox News' Brooke Singman and David Spunt contributed to this report.
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