FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Susan Rice Email Puts Obama in Crosshairs of Muellergate
Feb. 13, 2018 (EIRNS)—Barack Obama’s personal role in directing the British intelligence operation run against candidate and President-elect Donald Trump, through the dossier issued by “ex” MI6 agent Christopher Steele, is now on the table, through a letter sent to Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice by Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham of the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 8 and released yesterday. That letter raises questions concerning a now partially declassified email which Rice sent to herself on Jan. 20, 2017 at 12:15 p.m.—shortly before President Trump was inaugurated—on the meeting held in the Oval Office two weeks prior, on Jan. 5, 2017, on the lying British intelligence memo produced by Steele.
As Grassley and Graham drily noted to Rice,
“it strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation.”
Rice’s report is that after “a briefing by IC [intelligence community] leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation” with FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office, at which Vice President Joe Biden and Rice were also present. She records the following “official”version:
“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book.’ The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.
“From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”
The next paragraph is classified. Rice concludes:
“The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.”
The day following that Jan. 5 meeting where the four leaders of the intelligence community—Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers and Comey—officially presented Obama with the Steele dossier, the same four briefed President-elect Trump at Trump Tower on the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Comey infamously stayed behind after the other three left to carry out his self-described “J. Edgar Hoover moment,” attempting to blackmail the incoming President with the sickest of the Steele dossier’s charges.
Grassley and Graham do not reference the Jan. 6 meeting, but do request Rice respond to 12 questions by Feb. 22, such as:
“4. Did anyone instruct, request, suggest, or imply that you should send yourself the aforementioned Inauguration Day email memorializing President Obama’s meeting with Mr. Comey about the Trump/Russia investigation? If so, who and why?”
“6. Other than that email, did you document the January 5, 2017 meeting in any way, such as contemporaneous notes or a formal memo? To the best of your knowledge, did anyone else at that meeting take notes or otherwise memorialize the meeting?”
“7. During the meeting, did Mr. Comey or Ms. Yates mention potential press coverage of the Steele dossier? If so, what did they say?”
“11. You wrote that President Obama stressed that he was ‘not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.’ Did President Obama ask about, initiate, or instruct anything from any other perspective relating to the FBI’s investigation?”[emphasis in original]; and, lastly:
“12. Did President Obama have any other meetings with Mr. Comey, Ms. Yates, or other government officials about the FBI’s investigation of allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russia? If so, when did these occur, who participated, and what was discussed?”
