During an interview on Thursday’s “Kilmeade & Friends” on Fox News Radio, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) responded to a question on whether he thought Susan Rice committed a crime by stating, “Yeah. I think she did something that’s devastating, and that is to take top secret information without a warrant for looking at an American individual, and exposed that individual, and then perhaps be associated with people who may have leaked this information.”
Rand said that Rice “did something terribly damaging to the country because we can’t allow — you know, the intelligence community loses a lot of credibility when we find out it’s being politicized. And so, there are dangers really to having political people use top secret information for political purposes. And I think the more we learn about Susan Rice, the more we’re going to learn that she’s been involved, I think, in a lot of shenanigans with using intelligence at the White House for political purposes.”
When asked if he thought Rice “committed a crime?” He answered, “Yeah. I think she did something that’s devastating, and that is to take top secret information without a warrant for looking at an American individual, and exposed that individual, and then perhaps be associated with people who may have leaked this information.”
He continued, “But you can’t have the executive branch of government listening in on conversations. Think about it, if a US senator is talking to the ambassador to Jordan or to Israel, should the executive branch, the president, be allowed to listen to private conversations between senators and heads of state? This is what happened. There were senators and congressmen talking to Netanyahu about a year or so ago, and the White House was listening in on these too. This is a real problem. This is why we need overall reform in how much data is gathered, and I think to unmask an American is something we should obey the Constitution with. Now we have a lower standard for eavesdropping on foreigners, but for eavesdropping on legislators, one, that shouldn’t happen, because there should be a separation of powers and protection of each branch of government’s powers. But two, if you want to look at an American or listen to an American’s phone call, they should go through a regular court and ask a regular judge to listen to it. Having political people, who have been known to be partisans, and very, very biased like Susan Rice, you can’t let those — those people shouldn’t have the ability to look at American’s phone calls.”
Rand added that “The FISA court is a secret court. So, one of the problems with a secret court is, you don’t get a lawyer on your side. There’s only a lawyer on one side. It’s a one-sided court, which is a problem. The other problem is that it’s in secret. Now you could say, well we’ll accept a lower standard for spying on foreigners, and even the privacy advocate that I am, I can accept a somewhat of a lower standard for foreigners, but when they’re talking to Americans, to listen to the Americans or to unmask the Americans, I think you ought to go to a regular court and have a regular court order or warrant.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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