[NY Post] Ex-national security adviser Susan Rice privately told House investigators that she "unmasked" the identities of some senior Trump officials to learn why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York late last year, CNN reported Wednesday, citing sources.The New York sitdown ‐ which the Obama administration wasn’t told about ‐ came before a separate effort by the UAE to set up back-channel communications between Russia and the incoming Trump White House, the network said.
Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan arrived in New York last December before Trump was sworn in for a meeting with several top Trump advisers, including Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner and top strategist Steve Bannon, sources said.
The Obama administration felt misled by the UAE, which had failed to tell them that Zayed was coming to the US, which is standard procedure for such visits.
Rice told the House Intelligence Committee last week that she asked for the names of the Americans mentioned in the classified report to be revealed internally, a practice officials in both parties say is common.
Trump later accused Rice of committing a crime.
But her explanation seemed to have satisfied some Republicans on the committee, and raised new questions about whether any Trump officials tried to arrange back-channel discussions with the Russians.
"I didn’t hear anything to believe that she did anything illegal," Florida Rep. Tom Rooney, a Republican helping to lead the panel’s Russia investigation, told CNN about Rice’s testimony.