List released of Obama officials involved in unmasking of Gen. Flynn
Fox News senior judicial analyst Jude Andrew Napolitano breaks down the legal implications.
Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano told "The Daily Briefing" Wednesday that the declassified list of Obama administration officials who requested the unmasking of Michael Flynn had "opened up a can of worms."
Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell declassified the documents earlier this week, and they were released Wednesday afternoon by Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Prominent names on the list include then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, then-Treasury Secretary Jacob "Jack" Lew and former FBI Director Jim Comey.
Napolitano told host Dana Perino that some of the names in the documents, such as John Phillips, President Barack Obama's ambassador to Italy & San Marino, did not appear to have an obvious connection to Flynn.
LIST OF OFFICIALS WHO SOUGHT TO 'UNMASK' FLYNN RELEASED
"Some of it sticks out, it’s a little odd" said Napolitano, who added that he could understand why then-U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass would be interested in Flynn's communications, since his consulting firm had been paid by a group with ties to Turkey's government.
"But the unmasking, of course, was about materials that didn’t directly involve Turkey," Napolitano added. "This is a can of worms that is going to ask more questions than it’s going to answer."
Napolitano told Perino tht while Grenell himself did not release the list to the public, he allowed Johnson and Grassley to have access to it with a high likelihood that it would be made public.
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"The question was, [for] what reason was it delivered to the senators and for what reason was that released, because this information is supposed to be kept secret unless there is a 'compelling national security reason,'" Napolitano said. "That's from the statute as a basis for releasing."
Napolitano also said that the release of the list of names raises questions about who leaked Flynn's name to The Washington Post, which reported extensively in early 2017 on Flynn's conversations with then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.
"There would be a serious problem for the person who did that," he said, "but I don’t think that this in any way implicates the legal issues for the court [in the Flynn case]."
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