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The Fox News Rundown

Fox News Rundown Extra: A Deep Dive Into The Flynn 'Unmasking' Controversy

The Fox News Rundown

FOX News Podcasts

Politics, Daily News, News

3.41.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A list of officials from the Obama administration who sought to "unmask" President Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn was released this week. The latest revelation has Republican lawmakers calling for hearings as Donald Trump says this week's developments prove the Obama Administration used their power to damage his presidency. Democrats have called the story a 'distraction' and many Americans are understandably confused by all the details and allegations. Earlier this week, host Jessica Rosenthal took a look at the controversy and some of the accusations being made against President Obama and his justice Department. One of the guests she spoke to was former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy. The Fox News Contributor offered some perspective on the case, explained the practice of "unmasking" and broke down the complex timeline of the Flynn investigation and the origins of the Russia probe. The interview was too long and we could include a small portion of it in our original segment. On The Fox News Rundown Extra, you'll hear our full interview with former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew McCarthy and get his take on what President Donald Trump is calling "Obamagate." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

It's time to take the quiz.

0:01.7

Five questions, five minutes a day, five days a week.

0:04.3

Take the quiz every weekday at the Quiz dot Fox

0:07.3

and then listen to the Quiz podcast to find out how you did.

0:10.2

Clay, share, and of course listen listen to the quiz at the quiz.

0:14.0

Fox.

0:15.0

This is the Fox News rundown extra.

0:18.0

I'm Jessica Rosenthal.

0:22.0

This week we spoke to Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy.

0:25.4

We often have to cut interviews down for time during the week, but we thought we'd like

0:28.9

to hear all of our discussion with McCarthy because he's a former federal prosecutor out of the Southern District of New York and he knows all about unmasking.

0:37.0

He defends it as a much-needed tool of intelligence work, but worries if people think that kind of tools being abused or worse politicized,

0:45.0

it'll be curbed, even taken away.

0:48.0

It's important because supporters of President Trump say they're infuriated by requests made by Obama-era administration

0:54.8

officials to unmask a name they saw in intelligence documents. It turned out to be

0:59.5

the name of Michael Flynn. Then newly elected President Trump's National Security

1:03.7

advisor and the fired former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency

1:07.5

under President Obama. The names of those Obama-era officials were

1:11.8

declassified this week by acting director of national

1:15.2

intelligence Rick Grinnell and sent to Republican senators.

1:18.8

Among the names, Vice President Joe Biden, leading Democrats to accuse current intelligence officials of being the ones to politicize.

1:26.0

They defend the prior request to unmask as routine.

...

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