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There are some new developments that damage President Trump’s still-nebulous “Obamagate” claim. Before we delve into them, let’s explain this whole Michael Flynn unmasking thing, which is a key part of it.
1. Unmasking is a common process in the intelligence community where government officials ask the intelligence community to reveal the name of an anonymous American in an intelligence report. The intelligence community usually keeps American names swept up in their surveillance “masked” unless an official asks.
2. Michael Flynn was briefly Trump’s national security adviser in 2017. He got swept up in FBI surveillance after he had a secret conversation with the Russian ambassador about sanctions before Trump was inaugurated. Flynn also was charged with a crime for lying to the FBI about this call.
3. Trump and Senate Republicans have tried to allege that Obama administration officials like Joe Biden unmasked Flynn just before they left office, which was right as Flynn’s legal troubles started, and therefore may have had something to do with the FBI investigating Flynn. GOP senators released a list of names last week of Obama officials who requested Americans be unmasked around the dates of Flynn’s call, and it included Biden.
What's new: It was already a stretch to tie Biden to the FBI’s investigation of Flynn. It turns out Flynn’s name wasn’t masked at all, nor was his call with the Russian ambassador on the list Republicans publicized last week, former FBI officials told The Post’s Ellen Nakashima. So as far as we know, there was no unmasking of Flynn’s conversation with the Russians, much less done by Biden
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