In fact, @DevinNunes was most likely so enraged by @AmbassadorRice’s lawful, normal unmasking requests because one of the names unmasked was his own. https://twitter.com/devinnunes/status/870330243097276416
4/ OK, I have to do a mini-thread here. In March 2017, @DevinNunes made his infamous ‘Midnight Rambler’ trip to the White House when (I suggest) warned by his former counsel Michael Ellis that his name was visible in these documents. And @RepAdamSchiff said Nunes should recuse.
5/ Like @20committee, @RepAdamSchiff was telling the truth about @AmbassadorRice’s “unmasking” requests. But note Schiff’s deadpan comment: “[Nunes] informed me that most of the names... were in fact masked, but... he could still figure out the identity of the parties”
6/ It must have killed @AdamSchiff to have remained a sphinx all these years on what he knows. The fact is, @DevinNunes could “figure out” who was talking because the transcripts read something like this:

USP 1: Hi Devin
USP 2: Hi @carterwpage, how’s Moscow?
7/ This, in turn, explains why Bill Barr wet his pants so very much on the FISA granted on @CarterWPage. Such interception was lawful precisely because there was a FISA warrant on Page as a possible agent of a foreign power. If they could declare that FISA illegal, so was this
8/ It is, therefore, VERY important to separate the smoke from the fire. Even though Clinesmith pled guilty to altering evidence placed before the FISC in the Page application, the FISC judge ruled that this deception was *not material* to the granting of the warrant.
9/ That means that the FISA warrant on Carter Page was legally and lawfully granted and all those intercepted communications remain evidence - not “fruit of the poisoned tree”. Whatever Page and Nunes discussed - it’s still fair game.
10/ That does not change because the FBI decided that Page was not acting for Russia and did not renew the warrant. The warrant was granted on a preponderance of the evidence and it was still lawful. If you reread press coverage of @DevinNunes ranting in March ‘2017....
11/ Nunes is talking, explicitly, about the transition team (headed by @Mike_Pence). He is afraid of what intercepts say about the transition. As he should be. Because while @AmbassadorRice did nothing wrong in ‘unmasking’, you can’t say the same for those who were ‘unmasked’.
12/ Finally, you bet that @KamalaHarris, shining star of the Senate Intelligence Committee, knows all of this. We could not have a better leader headed to the White House to advise @JoeBiden on Putin’s attack on America. Ends.
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