printIn his Talking Points Memo, Bill O’Reilly distills the Susan Rice twist in “the Trump Surveillance story”:
“Tonight we will give you just the facts, no speculation, no hysteria. The latest from Fox News correspondents Adam Housley and Malia Zimmerman is this: ‘Multiple sources tell Fox News that Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance.’ That is very troubling and if it can be proven, Susan Rice is in major trouble. Also, because the national security advisor was so close to President Obama, he will have to answer questions as well. So you can see an enormous story is developing and it really doesn’t matter whether the liberal mainstream media ignores it. Congress and the FBI will not. To be fair to Ms. Rice, she denies all wrongdoing and should be given the presumption of innocence. That is the American way. Here’s my question: If Susan Rice did surveil the Trump people for a year, what was her motive? This woman is a national security advisor, she’s got a lot of work to do. So why would she be running over to the National Security Agency or the CIA reviewing wiretaps? And why, if a Trump person was involved, would she want the name? The key question here is motivation. Both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees should subpoena Susan Rice immediately, and both committees should send written questions to President Obama. Also, the FBI should interview Ambassador Rice and conduct a very thorough investigation of her behavior. Because if the Trump campaign or the transition team were being spied upon by the Obama administration, that has to be uncovered. Or am I wrong?”
The Factor pursued the Susan Rice story with FoxNews.com investigative reporter Malia Zimmerman. “We will be covering this story for weeks and months,” she predicted, “because it’s so vast and we don’t know so many things. We don’t know why they were surveilled and why President Trump and his family may have been included. This was going on for at least a year. We have intelligence sources and on Monday we were able to confirm that it was Susan Rice who did the unmasking. We believe someone in another agency may have told her to request the records and have those names unmasked. This whole thing was about embarrassing Donald Trump and making his presidency unstable, and it’s pretty clear that laws were broken.”