WASHINGTON – The investigation into whether Obama administration officials improperly asked during the 2016 election for the identities of people whose names had been redacted from intelligence reports has ended without any charges being filed, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Officials with the Justice Department have yet to comment publicly on the investigation. Citing unidentified sources, The Washington Post reported that no report was released to the public and no criminal charges were filed as a result of the months-long probe.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec told Fox News in May that U.S. Attorney John Bash had been tasked with investigating whether Obama-era officials wrongfully “unmasked” people connected to President Donald Trump before and after the 2016 election.
Along with investigating the unmasking requests, Bash and his team also investigated whether Obama administration officials leaked information to reporters, according to the Post. The newspaper reported that Bash’s findings have already been turned over to Barr.
Unmasking is commonly used to help government officials understand intelligence documents. When intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency conduct surveillance of foreigners in the U.S., Americans who speak or interact with the target are sometimes mentioned in surveillance reports. Intelligence analysts are obliged to hide or “mask” the names of Americans in their reports unless they know the names are necessary to understand the reports, according to The Associated Press.
“Unmasking inherently isn’t wrong, but certainly, the frequency, the motivation and the reasoning behind unmasking can be problematic,” Kupec told Fox News in May.
Officials learned through unmasking that Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had interacted with Russia’s ambassador despite his telling FBI agents otherwise. Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI, although the Justice Department has since backed down from its prosecution.
