President Trump on Thursday called out Susan Rice for refusing to testify before a Senate committee investigating both Russian meddling in the 2016 election and allegations of Obama-era spying on Team Trump.
“Susan Rice, the former National Security Advisor to President Obama, is refusing to testify before a Senate Subcommittee next week on allegations of unmasking Trump transition officials. Not good!” Trump wrote in a pair of tweets.
Rice had been asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.
Rice’s lawyer, however, said she was declining to appear before the group because the ranking Democratic member on the subcommittee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, did not agree Rice should testify, thereby making the request “a significant departure from the bipartisan invitations extended to other witnesses.”
Multiple sources told Fox News last month that Rice had requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in foreign surveillance – including Trump’s short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
Rice largely avoided addressing the specific allegations during an early April interview on MSNBC; however, she said it was “absolutely false” that Obama officials utilized intelligence “for political purposes.”
The allegations that members of the Obama administration used classified information to undermine Trump was raised by Trump himself in a March tweet. Asked last month by The New York Times if he thought Rice committed a crime, Trump said: “Do I think? Yes, I think.”