Former Senior Obama Official Samantha Power Blames Others for Her Unmasking Scandal

Shocking new information about President Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, and her unprecedented unmasking requests has just come to light.

As we reported, earlier:

According to numerous reports, “[f]ormer United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power is believed to have made ‘hundreds’ of unmasking requests to identify individuals named in classified intelligence community reports related to Trump and his presidential transition team.”

Think about that: Hundreds of unmasking requests by Obama’s U.N. Representative. And “[o]f those [hundreds of] requests, only one offered a justification that was not boilerplate.”

Now new reports have revealed the unprecedented number of unmasking requests made by former Ambassador Power: “[She] was “unmasking” at such a rapid pace in the final months of the Obama administration that she averaged more than one request for every working day in 2016 – and even sought information in the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration . . . .”

Now, we have just learned that in her testimony before the House Oversight Committee this week in a closed-door interview she claimed others in the intelligence community used her name obtain this unprecedented unmasking. According to the Committee Chairman Representative Trey Gowdy, her only defense was it’s not me it’s my subordinates.

During an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier, Gowdy explained Power’s troubling testimony:

Her testimony is they may be under my name, but I did not make those requests . . . .

I think if she were on your show, she would say those requests to unmask may have been attributed to her, but they greatly exceed by an exponential factor the requests she actually made . . . . So, that's her testimony, and she was pretty emphatic in it . . . .

So, we've got to get to the bottom of that. If there is someone else making requests on behalf of a principal in the intelligence community, we need to know that because we're getting ready to reauthorize a program that's really important to the country, but also has a masking component to it.”

At the ACLJ, we have been consistently fighting the Obama-era deep state’s usurpation, unmasking, and criminal violations of the Espionage Act. Now we’re fighting to get to the bottom of yet another frightening Obama Administration scandal. Our Government Accountability Project filled a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests designed to expose these disturbing practices and get to the bottom of Power’s unprecedented and disturbing unmasking activities. The deep State Department bureaucracy again refused to comply with our lawful request for the truth, and we have again taken them to court.

Our lawsuit can cut through the subterfuge and unmask the truth. Who was actually making these unprecedented unmasking requests and for what purpose?

We have said it before and will say it again, the federal government and its entrenched bureaucrats are not above the law. We will hold the deep state bureaucracy and Obama-ara officials like Power’s accountable to the American people.

We will keep you up to date on the progress of our lawsuit as it continues.