By Debra Heine 2017-06-27T19:29:57

chat comments

Information is beginning to trickle in to the House Intelligence Committee regarding the three Obama officials who made unmasking requests of Americans involved with the Trump campaign, The Weekly Standard reported Tuesday.

Late last month, the committee issued seven subpoenas as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Team Obama's potentially illegal surveillance of Americans.

Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes sent three of those subpoenas to the CIA, FBI, and NSA, asking for details about any unmasking requests made by former national security adviser Susan Rice, former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, and former CIA director John Brennan in 2016 and January 2017.

Unmasking is the process of revealing the identities of Americans in intelligence reports whose communications have been “incidentally” intercepted during foreign intelligence collection operations. There are strict rules in place to prevent intelligence officials from abusing the system, but in certain rare situations they are allowed to unmask an American's identity. The Obama administration's unmasking requests sky-rocketed during the 2016 presidential election.