WASHINGTON, May 13 (Xinhua) -- Acting U.S. Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Wednesday sent two Republican lawmakers a list of senior officials in former President Barack Obama's administration, who are alleged to have been involved in "unmasking" former national security adviser Michael Flynn from an intelligence report.
Unmasking is a term that the U.S. intelligence community uses to refer to revealing the identity of someone in a monitored communication.
Grenell, in a letter to Republican Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, said that he declassified the document last week and that he was providing it to them for "situational awareness."
A memo signed by General Paul Nakasone, director of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), said the list includes identities of any officials who submitted requests to the agency at any point between Nov. 8, 2016 and Jan. 31, 2017 to unmask the identity of Flynn, also a senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Then Vice President Joe Biden, former White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, former FBI Director James Comey, and former CIA Director John Brennan are among those on the list.
The listees "may have received" Flynn's identity in response to a request to unmask an identity "that had been generically referred to in an NSA foreign intelligence report," the declassified document reads. "Each individual was an authorized recipient of the original report and the unmasking was approved through NSA's standard process."
Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a joint statement that they "wholeheartedly agree that transparency is needed now more than ever."
"One of the most significant unanswered questions about what occurred during the 2016 election is how many Americans were 'unmasked,' at whose request, and for what purpose," they wrote.
Republican Senator Rand Paul, an ally of Trump, told reporters on Wednesday that he wants a hearing on this matter.
"These rumors have been going around for years that Obama's administration was abusing the power of unmasking, and this sounds like they were using it to go after a political opponent, which is a serious offense and should be investigated," Paul said.
The intelligence community frequently monitors the correspondence of foreign actors -- non-national individuals or groups that hold political influence -- including businessmen and ambassadors operating on U.S. soil, according to Business Insider. "If the monitored foreign actor is speaking with a U.S. citizen, the U.S. citizen's name will be 'masked' on the report or transcript to protect his or her identity."
Unmasking occurs when intelligence officials need more context about the surveillance on a foreign actor to make sense of the information they have received. In Flynn's case, the NSA was monitoring then Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn admitted in December 2017 that he lied to the FBI about his discussions, including of U.S. sanctions against Russia, with Kislyak.
Criminal charges against Flynn have become part of special counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into Moscow's alleged meddling to help Trump win in 2016, which the sitting president has repeatedly called a "witch hunt" and "hoax." Russia has repeatedly denied meddling in U.S. elections.
Biden and Trump are respectively the Democratic and Republican presumptive presidential nominees for this year's election.
In a statement released Wednesday, Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates said the information released Wednesday underscores the "breadth and depth of concern" across the government about Flynn's conversations with Russian nationals.
"Importantly, none of these individuals could have known Flynn's identity beforehand," Bates said. "These documents have absolutely nothing to do with any FBI investigation and they confirm that all normal procedures were followed -- any suggestion otherwise is a flat-out lie."
Brad Parscale, Trump's reelection campaign manager, responded that the claim Biden "doesn't know anything about the railroading of Gen. Michael Flynn just got even more unbelievable."
"OBAMAGATE!" Trump tweeted late Wednesday night.
It is not uncommon for officials to ask for the identities of anonymous individuals unnamed in intelligence reports, legal and intelligence experts said, but the list is likely to add fuel to a partisan debate over whether Flynn's prosecution was handled appropriately by federal authorities.
In a court filing last week, the U.S. Department of Justice said it was abandoning the prosecution of Flynn "after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information," a move that has triggered a political firestorm.
