he has some insight to the susan rice story. "the tip of the day," we'ree going to hit the road again. coming right back. >> bill: back tonight, we are going to do an interesting exercise. i'm going to play the part of susan rice's defense attorney and ambassador john bolton is going to answer my questions as an expert witness of national security.an mr. bolton joins us now. first of all, ambassador rice,. who holds the same title that you do, said she was just doing her duty as a national advisor in the white house by tracking trump people caught up in wiretaps. what say you to that? >> i think that's a very hard argument to make. she has a possibility of getting names that are concealed because they are american citizens , concealed on intercepts. i did the same thing when i was in the state department, but you have to do it for a legitimate purpose. y if there really was a desire to learn and understand better what the intercept was about, that's one thing. but if the purpose was for something political, that's completely imp

replicants went after and after was susan rice. after two years, they can find nothing that susan rice did wrong. >> bill: congressmen, raking member of the house intelligence committee speaking about mrs. rice's role in benghazi investigation including the opinion that she's a scapegoat even before any testimony is heard. this congressman really wanted know what happened in the surveillance deal? you make the call. it's obvious his fellow travelers on the left do not want to know, the loons are now burning the whole thing racial. >> did she do something wrong? >> there's no information indicating that so they are making her basically defaming her without any reason to do so because she's a woman, maybe because she's a black woman. >> bill: as talking points said yesterday, susan rice is entitled to the perception of innocence and should be called by congress to testify as soon as possible. but with easter break looming, that call will be down the road. at that time, i expect ms. rice to take the fifth just as lois lerner did. that

would bit susan rice job? no, it would be the fbi, the nsa or the cia, but it would in no world be susan rice's job. so i think it's pretty important that we understand that millions of americans are caught up in this web of intelligence collection. millions of americans' phone calls are caught up. we can't allow them to look at americans' phone calls without a warrant just because they disagree with us politically. this is very, very dangerous to our republic. >> sean: i really agree. because the issue of privacy. then america becomes a police state. if private confidential information is being revealed and unmasked and leaked, then there is no such thing as privacy. >> i have been asking for reforms to this for a long time. these are the back door searchs many of us are concerned about. there need to be reforms. if they are listening to a conversation with another branch of government, the legislative branch, they need to hang up. they need to not be eves it's not that they shouldn't just unmask our conversa

liz: susan rice is asking these names be unmasked? >> based on what i have learned, we were doing surveillance on foreign targets, for example, ambassadors oversea, they were discusses trump transition, the trump campaign and team. when those conversations weresume arized there -- summarized there was discussion of the trump people but they minimize or masked, they did not know who they were, to the rice's request to ask those names be identified. the important issue that is incidental collection, but you only identify americans when you feel there is a necessary intelligence value. it is just not clear what the national insecurity imperative was, it are not based on russia, was it related to politics, she said no, or related turkey? that is something slightly different, that is why it will be important to see the documents at the end of the day, to figure out if is inappropriate surveillance or perhaps within the law or reflected the administration's concern about russia and due diligence. liz: president trump now claims his tweet th

why isn't he going out there defending susan rice? michelle fields, lisa boothe they weigh in as well tonight on that "hannity" " various: (shouting) heigh! ho! ( ♪ ) it's off to work we go! woman: on the gulf coast, new exxonmobil projects are expected to create over 45,000 jobs. and each job created by the energy industry supports two others in the community. altogether, the industry supports over 9 million jobs nationwide. these are jobs that natural gas is helping make happen, all while reducing america's emissions. energy lives here. when it comes to heartburn... all while reducing america's emissions. trust the brand doctors trust. nexium 24hr is the #1 choice of doctors and pharmacists for their own frequent heartburn. for all day and all night protection... banish the burn... with nexium 24hr. if you've got a life, you gotta swiffer >> asking about the allegations leveled today by house intelligence committee chairman devin nunes trump transition officials including the president may have been swept up in surveillance of for

because susan rice was so close to him if this starts to develop, if susan rice takes the fifth, which i believe she will, then the president becomes directly involved. do you see that happening? >> no. >> bill: why? >> because there are -- she could have had this information, let's just say for speculation purposes once again, and it wasn't communicated directly to the president. >> bill: he is going to have to answer some questions? >> nothing illegal about it so why would the president be brought into that? >> bill: to ask whether she was directed to do it. very simple question. all right, ladies. thanks very much. >> thank you, bill. >> bill: plenty more when "the factor" moves along this evening. an amazing situation, california takes another step in possibly becoming a sanctuary state. that would pit them directly against the federal government. and then a lawsuit filed against donald trump by protesters who tried to disrupt one of his campaign appearances. wait until you hear this. i hope you stay tuned to those reports. ♪ ♪ >> bill: "factor follow-up" segment tonight. yeste

former national security advisor susan rice. the key moment from that interview in just a moment, but the back drop for all of this, the reason why we are talking about all of this, susan rice -- one, the reports yesterday from multiple outlets that she unmasked the identities of trump team members for political gain and, second, this february 9th article from the washington post that led to the forced resignation implicit in the article in order to report that information nine former and current u.s. intelligence officials revealed to the washington post classified intelligence about the nature and existence of conversations of federal crime. so when multiple news reports emerged yesterday and pointed to susan rice as having a role in unmasking who was involved in various intelligence reports, many asked if she was a central figure in how that information was disseminated and perhaps ultimately responsible for a leak. rice's response today? that characterization is not true. >> the allegation means that somehow obama administra

i don't think it stops susan rice. focusing on rice might be the wrong halfway here. >> sean: standard operating procedure according to every single intel source i have it would require that it was incidental that minimization occurred, that they don't reveal the name of the american, that they don't unmask the american and certainly don't leak than intelligencewh, which by the way is rawte intelligence. otherwise you are violating any sense of privacy. to use the term very early on, that would make america a police state, correct? >> that is a felony. there is a written record. no one from the ic community, intelligencey, community, whater do the unmasking and give that information on a verbal order. it just doesn't happen. there has to be written protocols that are followed. those written protocols have to be there. they have to bee there some that do ask him or whether they're on a ledger or some work on their logs and claiming executive privilege here would indicate to me that the president actually spoke to susan

who's going to believe susan rice? i've said yesterday she is the liar chief here.g if you look at the facts that we know and she's acknowledged then unmasking that she was the principle that authorized and asked for the unmasking. if you ask yourself the timing of this is not just bizarre it's the real evidence.re this was other than politics, what could this possibly be, because between then and now nothing has happened. no information has gotten out that any other intelligencein agency has said that there's been any collusion between the trump campaign, trump campaign officials, and the russians. in fact, to the contrary. the president was right. he used the phrase and he undersold it. he said wiretaps which is kind of the vernacular of u surveillance, it was much more than wiretaps evidently, it was electronics surveillance, and i want to call it what it is. they were spying on him and his incoming administration. that's what it appears to be. the media ignoring this as if it does not exist, there doesn't nothing t

susan rice did nothing wrong. what she did is exactly what the nsa, the flashl security advina advisor should do when you know russia's meddling in our laeshgss. wh elections. when you see a report that says americans were on the phone with a russian official who is being monitored, you should know who those are. that's what she did. she did her job. it is routine, it is regular and every republican, including lindsey graham, senator cotton and senator paul know that's the truth. >> give us the context and background leer. if two foreign officials are talking about somebody in the trump administration, it's perfectly normal to have their name come up potentially in an intelligence report. but that their name would be masked? also, one other point. we should mention this. devin nunes when he went to the white house said this had nothing to do with russia. >> and nothing was wrong. >> and nothing was wrong. this is all getting kind of muddy. ambassador mcfaul, walk us through it, if you can. >> couple of things. fir

people in washington are eager to justify susan rice's action. max, thanks for coming on. >> thanks for having me. >> tucker: why wouldn't we be concerned that she had access to this information and did something unusual with it? >> tucker, as you know, i'm a life-long republican. i was an adviser to mitt romney and mccain. i am no susan rice defender. i'm no defender of the obama administration. if they did something wrong, they should be exposed. my concern is that we have not seen credible evidence of wrongdoing and my real concern is that this is largely a smokescreen concocted by the white house to distract attention from the scandal that the russian intelligence service intervened in our election. the fbi is investigating whether there is collusion and his senior aides. we need to get to the bottom of this. we need an independent commission and special council. let's throw in all these allegations that trump is throwing out against susan rice. >> tucker: i don't think this is about trump. i know you don't care for trump. independent and apa

susan rice spoke today. now we have actually the senate and house intel committees both saying that they would like to have her come up and talk to them. will we hear from anybody else? final word. >> look, i have said for a very long time we need an independent probe into this. charles krauthammer is absolutely right. it's gotten way too toxic. we need a respected bipartisan coalition of people whoever they may be. i don't know who they would be. maybe tom kaine and lee hamilton, again, people who did the 9/11 commission to get to the bottom of this. i think we are all, republicans and democrats, need to know exactly what went on with respect to raush, maybe nothing, maybe something big. i think it's time we get to the bottom of it and leave politics out of it. charles is right et world is on fire we need to make sure the a russians are not going to continue this with us or our allies going forward. >> dana: thank you some. appreciate it up next you won't see et susan rice developments anywhere else as some

we believed it to be susan rice. on monday we were able to confirm that. >> bill: you were anal able to unmask, pardon the pun, susan rice. when she went on msnbc and said i didn't do anything, did that strike you as unusual? did you -- what was your reaction to her denying everything? >> well, it was odd because on her show on -- when she went on pbs, she basically said she didn't remember anything about that. she didn't recall. >> bill: that was march 22nd. >> right. and then today she said well, you know, she did have to do it. it was required in some cases. so those are two different conflicting statements. and then she also said she didn't remember it escalating after the election. which we believe it did. so, in terms of the surveillance. so, you know, if terms of what government officials, you know, we don't know for sure yet whether or not all the facts have come out. >> bill: as i mentioned in the talking points, the national security advisor and the president of the united states each morning get a summatio

he accuses susan rice of committing a crime flat out. the president said quote, no, you have a lot of information. no, you have so much information. do you think she might have committed a crime? the president replied yes. i think. and the former undersecretary for foreign affairs and still with us defense, jeremy bash. how do you come out and criminalize a former u.s. ambassador, former security advisor with a glaring, yawning lack of evidence so far? >> it's not just lack of evidence, it's lack of knowledge about the whole process. this kind of ignorance of how the intelligence process works, that intelligence services give you that information. i went to just look at the number of fisa requests, 702 requests that then ask for an unmasking of a u.s. person. about a quarter of them do. it's not unusual. something like 500 u.s. citizens names were revealed in 2015. having looked through those reports myself, you often see a name redacted or it says a u.s. person. most of the time it doesn't seem relevant. but if you're the national secur

here was tom cotton on the subject of susan rice today. >> susan rice is the typhoid mary of the obama administration foreign policy. every time something went wrong, she seemed to turn up ihe midd of it. >> so, bianna, that is one of the talking points to your earlier point, this is the latest kind of deflect and replace. meantime, we have actual foreign policy going on around the world. we have tragedies. we have potential crises. the question i think is asked fairly, if this was an unforced error, a problem of their own making, what about the problem of what's going on around the world? >> that's right. it is all fine while we're talking about this with an economy that's relatively healthy, but we did see the first international crisis with the tragedy we saw unfold in syria and we saw how this administration responded to that, offering few words and saying it is really on russia and iran to figure out what is going on in syria. this is a huge blemish for the obama administration, yet this administration seems to say, okay, our previous administration is to blame and we're not going

>> well, first to the susan rice reporting. yesterday, various news outlets including bloomberg reported that she had unmasked names of some officials related to the trump transition, trump campaign, as a part of gathering intelligence and surveillance. she responded to that for the first time today, as you saw, with andrea mitchell, exclusively. and just to highlight the crux of what she's saying, katie. what she is saying is, look, the act of unmasking an individual or learning their identity does not necessarily cross the line or violate any laws. what would violate a law, she says, is to leak out classified information. and you heard her push back very vigorously against that information. when andrea asked her point-blank, did you leak the name of mike flynn? she said no, that she didn't leak that name and she never would leak out classified information. so that's really where the line could potentially be crossed. now, in terms of why all of this matters, katie, just to put this into a broader context, the president has be

susan rice has a long history of lying, getting caught lying. just go back to the benghazi hearings and revisit all that. this is not someone the american public had trust in. there's already a distrust of her, what's coming out of her mouth. what she said on pbs contradicts what shed to andrea mitchell. there's a lot of smoke here, a lot of questions. she didn't do a good job of clarifying this yesterday. >> harris: i don't want to like semantics, but when she said, "i didn't leak anything" she's using that word deliberately, because that means something was done i don't remember. >> the relaxing of the laws that i mentioned, we'll maybe get into that on a different day, because we need to talk about what the obama administration did on its way out the door. charles krauthammer is not caught up in semantics or mincing words. >> she's not an investigator. she's a political operative. she works on behalf of the president. if it can be shown that this was a political fishing expedition, then she's in a world of hurt. >> harris: a world of hurt, ch

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let's start with susan rice. calling for unmasks of american citizens, and incredibly there no penalty at least as far as we've been able to determine for her conduct if these allegations turn out to be all of them true. >> that may be true depending on the facts. but even if there is no statute that specifically prohibits that, if that conduct is the case, that is an abuse of power, american people should be upset. we have figure out who was unmasked and why, and what that information used for, if that is the same information that been illegally leaked to press time and time again to kn cap this president, tn i think you may have something. lou: all of a sudden, national left wing media is backing off. remember the mocking tone taken by what president trump called failing "new york times," and various left wing media outlets, this is now, would you not say, i mean this is a major scandal? >> absolutely, they ran all these stories where there was no factual basis, they would say, well, it may be the case there wa

let's start with susan rice. thank you for coming back. why would susan rice pursue this? >> i have no idea but i think we need to get to the bottom of it. susan rice misled the american people and appeared on sunday shows after the attack saying things that were completely false and untrue in terms of political manipulation of national security information. susan rice in my view has done it in the past. whether or not she did it this time i don't know but it's something congress should look into. if she was involved in unmasking trump transition figures was there a reason and i'd like to get to the bottom of it. >> bill: she worked for the president. who would have told her to do this? >> i have no idea but here's the one thing i can tell you about susan rice, i thought they manipulated the fact pattern in benghazi to the benefit of the president and tried to mislead the public. i know what they're capable of doing. i'm not going to prejudge here but i think every american should know whether the national security adviser to president obama was involved in unmasking trump

what they were able to do and we know it went to susan rice. we know former cia director john brennan was allowed to do this and james clapper. they had the ability to request unmasked american foreign to foreign raw intelligence. highly classified. >> sean: even if it was legitimate intelligence gathering, they are using that as a means to spy on innocent americans without the benefit of a warrant. a good way to put it. >> yes, that's certainly what intelligent sources are saying. they are saying look, this is not about the unmasking only. it's about why did they specifically unmask -- susan rice in particular -- at this point, from july, all the way back to july -- because >> sean: will would be the reason short of they want to use they want to use intelligence gathering as a ruse to get to the trump campaign to get to trump? >> if it goes back to july, these are the questions you have to ask. according to the sources i've spoken with, it goes back to july. it happened again and november and it happened exponentially in november through janua

this is what susan rice said when she was asked

next up, palace intrigue involving steve bannon, susan rice, and ivanka trump. does it get any better ..es it get any better >> phone call this correspondent this afternoon. president trump waited on the allegations that susan rice was behind, the unmasking of trump officials who are caught up up in intelligence reports. resident trump for telling fox news he believes that susan rice may have committed a crime. the real question we need to ask susan rice's did the president direct you to eavesdrop and sift through all the mountains of intelligence we have? >> there's eventually going to be a law produce that will have susan rice, how many times she logged in and whose information she looked for. and this takes a while. i can't look at it. >> how likely is it that mrs. rice would be testifying? >> i think it be almost inevitable. >> republican lawmakers beating the brake drums for or obama and a national security advisor susan rice to be hauled before congress to testify about her role in the unmasking of trump associates that have appeared and classified intelli

rice then they'll ask susan rice to come before the committee. this comes as the senate and house intelligence committee are finalizing their list of witnesses on the house side. a notable development that the republicans and democratics appear to be closer to consensus on exactly who to interview as part of a probe that have been stalled over chairman devin nunes role. that investigation continues to take shape as republicans and democrats are interviewing members of the intelligence community in a private setting including the first transcribed interview. the question is will susan rice be one of those people that come forward. >> thanks very mump for the reporting. let's get some more on all of this with the democrat eric. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> you heard the former national skur security advisor, do you believe she's done anything improper? >> i've seen no evidence that she has. we have seen this as a hurdle that's keeping us from getting to the finish line of this investigation. we're determined to get to the bottom of what

liz: we shouldn't be focusing on susan rice. we don't know if she did anything illegal. >> we should be focusing on her. >> she hasn't done anything illegal as far as we know. >> if we continue to look at the trail of her unmasking names of trump official for political reasons is illegal and deplorable.ainst thlaw, it's a crime. kathy, i would like your take own this story. we have an unequal pay controversy for a well-known democrats. senator elizabeth warren doesn't pay her female staffers the same as male staffers. i know she called herself a nasty woman, it's a play on donald trump ding the campaign. >> we nasty women are going to march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of our lives forever. liz: it turns out the women who worked for senator warren get a pretty nasty paycheck. they make about $20,000 less than male workers. we reached out to senator warren for comments. nothing yet. >> it's unfortunate because i am a nasty woman and i support everything she believes in. but in this case it's do as i say a

i want you to listen to what he said about what susan rice, what he believes susan rice did in this interview. watch this. >> here's the thing is you can order -- you can order the specific, you know, listening device or you can say, you know what, we already have it, and it's just amazing reverse targeting, and we have millions of people in a database and i can can be susan rice and go down and type donald trump or general flynn into a database. >> do you know if that happens. >> is that not the same as ordering the surveillance? they know it exists. look, every business, every international businessman or woman who talks over seas is in that database. do we want political officials to be able to type in the name of bill gates and find out that they have a deal going on in europe? >> those names are supposed to be masked. >> that's the point. >> i believe susan rice abused this system and she did it for political purposes. she needs to be brought in and questioned under oath. >> okay, you believe -- >> is that a fair characterization? >> first of all, there are a lot of alternative facts in

rob:a potential bombshell, the requested report that the center of the susan rice controversy not only unmask the trump transition team but appear to have spied on everyday americans. heather: to the obama administration's top security advisor commit a crime? rob: this appears to be getting deeper. >> reporter: it does. john roberts, president trump believes susan rice committed a crime in the unmasking of officials cooped up in those intelligence reports. vice president pence is latest to call on rice to say he believes the american people have a right to know. >> surveillance of any private citizen in this country and identity of the citizens was revealed people should know why and the fact that it involved our campaign and transition should be deeply troubling to anyone. >> reporter: one lawmaker, peter king, sits on the intelligence committee, says he is familiar with this. and could include, quote, every day details. will she testify, will she plead the fifth, >> >> people in charge, susan rice asked for, and if she takes the fifth, that would be stunning. >> utilize intelligence

so what else did susan rice said about this so-called unmasking? >> bill, when is it not a mouthful to digest everything that happened here daily? interesting to look as you point out, the difference between what she said today compared to the pbs interview on march 22 when there was an utter denial of anything that devin nunes was talking about. today no denial that she's the person that asked for the names to be unmasked in intelligence reports but that firm denial that any of this was done for political purposes or she leaked any one's name. listen here. >> it's in that process and within the context of the trump campaign, the trump transition, did you seek the names of people involved in -- did you unmask the names of people involved in the trump transition, the trump campaign, people surrounding the president-elect in order to spy on them? >> absolutely -- absolutely not for any political purposes, to spy, expose, anything. >> so the white house suggesting that most of the media is not giving this the sense of importance that the white house t

susan rice denies leaking anything. republican lawmakers don't believe her and want her to testify under oath. meanwhile, democrats say issues keep dropping in the russian investigation. chief white house correspondent john roberts starts us off from the north lawn. good evening. >> good evening. while democrats tend to defend susan rice, republicans like senator lindsey graham say her track record which includes praising sergeant bowe bergdahl and getting blamed for the benghazi attack mean that when it comes to susan rice, "you have to verify, not trust." former national security advisor susan rice did not deny today she asked for the names of trump campaign and transition officials to be unmasked in intelligence reports. insisting that in general the practice was pretty routine. >> and orders understand the importance of the report and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out or request the information as to who that u.s. official was. >> what she did dispute was an apolitical motivation in the unmasking

susan rice asked for comment parent hasn't responded. one senses she probably would be quick to say so. we can't conclude definitely this is the real deal, but there is real evidence. it certainly confirms that this whole thing about the surveillance and trump associate in the unmasking of their names and identities. is a legitimate threat or these investigations going over. nicole: click or men at white house this in detail. reporter: susan rice requested the unmasking of names that those close to president trump campaign for bed. though it that the obama white house squarely at the center estimates was president of him is former national security adviser. unmasking is the process of revealing someone's identity for intelligence purposes. if there's no intelligence value, their names are not that these within the intelligence community. the question is that there was sent for legitimate intelligence purposes or if there was some political motive. house intelligence committee chairman congressman devin nunes first raised the question las

so, when it comes to susan rice and ben rhodes, verify, don't trust. sharyl: ben rhodes was president obama's deputy national security advisor. in an interview with msnbc earlier this month, susan rice said it wasn't unusual for her u.s. citizens caught in intel surveillance. but she said it was for context, not political reasons and that she, "didn't leak nothing to nobody." sharyl: coming up on "full measure." with tax day nearly here, we'll investigate how the government can legally empty your bank account when you've committed no crim sharyl: a new development in the story i first heard working six years ago. in the murder of border patrol agent brian terry has finally been arrested in mexico. heraclio osorio-arellanes will be extradited to the u.s. terry was murdered in arizona by illegal immigrants armed with weapons the feds secretly allowed to be trafficked to drug cartels. atf agent john dodson publicly blew the whistle on the government operation in an interview with me in 2011. at least 69 deaths have been linked to criminals who used weapon

the president began by talking about susan rice in an interview that we had previously scheduled with him to talk about his infrastructure plan which is still in it's early stages, and i talked about the president and the possibly supreme court justice neil gorsuch and the president started talking about susan rice, about how this is a big story, it is going to become the biggest story, he intimated without powering any evidence, there are other people involved in this, and he was adamant that she had done something wrong and improper, suggested it was not getting the media attention that it deserved including the times and other papers. and when i went on to say do you think she may have committed a crime, he said do i think? he said yes i think. i said do you have any intelligence that relates to this? and this man has a habit of escalating and also when he has previously made claims that he will provide additional information for, and he has not. so we'll see where this goes. >> he didn't offer any evidence to support the accusation? >> reporter: he did not, he said there were othe

did susan rice do it? we don't know yet. >> julie: thank you very much, we appreciate it. >> jon: right now, russia is still firmly backing the al-assad regime, glenda vladimn -- president trump said the attack in syria crossed many lines for him. nikki haley pointed the finger at russia for enabling syria. >> russia has shielded al-assad from sanctions. if russia has the power in syria that it claims to have, we need to see the music. we need to see them put an end to these terroristic acts. a >> jon: joining now, lieutenant colonel michael walt's. are there any good options for the white house in syria right now? >> there's a number of options and to take a step back, i'm glad that president trump brought up the 2012 redline. i would add to that that president obama essentially made meaningless, i would add to that in 2015, the u.n. new that the syrian regime had kept its chemical weapons and still, we did nothing. i do think in the short term, we have to do something. we cannot let this stand. one optio

i can't imagine susan rice was doing this on her own. what did she do after she got the information? did she disclose it? lou: did they have surveillance of senator bernie sanders as well? where did it end? why aren't there answer to the questions like the f.b.i. warned the dnc of quote-unquote the intent of russians to hack the dnc computer. the f.b.i. was told by the democratic national committee to go away. no culpability or accountability on the part of the dnc. >> president obama ran two brilliant campaigns and they never stopped running the campaign. i think at the end of the day they are going to pay a price for it and the country paid a price for it. lou: be sure to vote in our poll tonight. should presidents trump, xi and putin meet to resolve the sir aian crises and north korea and restore world order? please roll the video. the thrill seekers speed riding in the french alps. the skier didn't stop there, completing the amazing stop. look at this. wow! here comes the back flip. yeah! amazing. incredible. president trump refuses

former national security adviser susan rice. >> i believe susan rice abused the system, and she did it for political purposes. she needs to be brought in and questioned under oath. >> in terms of political manipulation of national security information, susan rice, in my view, has done it in the past. when it comes to susan rice, you need to verify, not trust. >> susan rice is the typhoid mary of the obama administration foreign policy. every time something went wrong, she seemed to turn up in the middle of it, whether it was benghazi -- >> what is it that susan rice is supposed to have done? well, republicans say she tried to access the names of u.s. individuals caught up in intelligence surveillance, a process known as unmasking, and somehow abused her position for some nefarious political end. is any of that true? well, today in an exclusive interview with andrea mitchell, susan rice got a chance to answer the allegations herself. >> the allegation is that somehow obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes. that's absolutely false. >> did you seek the

what susan rice probably did is definitely worth an investigation. it's not the same as talking about wiretapping. >> james: here is what one prominent senator, well, he caucuses with the democrats. angus king of maine. >> that obscures the much, much larger issue of what did the russians do in our campaign? how did they do it? was there a relationship with one of the other of the campaigns? >> james: is that the big story? >> it's one of the big stories but not the only one. this is the line we've heard from democrats and their allies for weeks. there's only one thing that matters, and that's russia and what did russia do? i believe that's important to be resolved enough to be checked thoroughly but they have simultaneously argued that the questions about the leaks, the new questions about unmasking, why was susan rice asking for this. it's harder to argue now that that's story, aside tail. >> james: chairman nunes has said that if you review, not many of us will have the opportunity to do, but if one reviews the paper trail around the intelligence

he was talking about susan rice. now, whatever you think the former national security advisor has done wrong, if in fact she's done anything wrong at all, it's hard to imagine when the community and the president himself are coming to terms with a gas attack in syria. we do use the term -- in fact he uses a number of souperalives hin his rarkz. >> one of the biggest events. it was the biggest leck toral college win since ronald reagan. one of the big things on the internet was trump was 100% right about brussels. the biggest increase in 45 years. this is the biggest political scandal since watergate. we're getting the biggest crowds, the greatest people. and we have by far the biggest rallies people have seen. >> if so many things are described as the biggest or the best or the most, how to tell what's really important to the president. gnaw to panel, not the biggest we've ever had but certainly the bestest. keirsten, it is interesting that the president always uses these nurmzch and after a while they start to lose

all at the request of president obama's top security official susan rice. experts from across the intel community are now urging americans to think twice before they take the rices brush off of this at face value. it a two decade cia veteran cautions this "rices denials don't add up. it's hard to fathom how the d masking of multiple trump campaign and transition officials was not politically motivated." it joining me now, the intel committee and her appearance at any panel would represent an unnecessary hurdle is it earlier. welcome. why would it be an unnecessary hurdle? >> because there's no evidence that there was any wrongdoing but if the republicans think that this has to be on the witness list, will clear that hurdle and make it to the finish line and we are determined to do that. >> martha: you're saying you don't believe that there are two sides to this investigation and, that there is the side of the unmasking issue and whether or not there was an effort by the prior administration to observe or curtail them to damage them and the other side of it

this is what susan rice said when she was asked

seizing on susan rice request to unmask. tweeting he was spied on before the nomination and calling it a crooked scheme. allegations that she did anything unusual or improper false. the white house blasting the media for ignoring the ginned up scandal. >> media standpoint lack of interest in public revelations. >> as officials stressed unmasking names in intelligence reports is a routine procedure, different from leaking to the press. >> there's a procedures you have to go through, lawyers look over your shoulder. nothing unusual about unmasking. >> laltest justification a far cry from president trump's initial claim one month area that president obama wiretapped trump tower, an accusation that mr. trump has since attempted to redefine. and justify. >> even after his own fbi director refused the claim. >> i think you'll find interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks. >> last week tried to distort comments about evelyn farkas. >> farkas said her comments wildly misinterpreted. the week before that hous