Former Obama aide now a 'person of interest' in congressional probe over unmasking

Ben Rhodes, a former national security adviser in the Obama administration, is now considered a "person of interest" in an investigation by the House Intelligence Committee into the "unmasking" scandal.

According to a report from Circa News, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sent a letter to the National Security Agency asking for information in regard to unmasking requests from Rhodes.

Congressional sources told Circa that the committee wants to know how many unmasking requests Rhodes made from Jan. 1, 2016, to Jan. 20, 2017.

Previous reports indicated that the number of unmasking requests increased drastically from 2015 to 2016, leading some to suspect they were made out of political interest, and not for the sake of national security.

In a letter sent to National Intelligence Director Dan Coats last week, Nunes said that the committee had "found evidence that current and former government officials had easy access to U.S. person information and that it is possible that they used this information to achieve partisan political purposes, including the selective, anonymous leaking of such information.”

“Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports,” he said. “However, there was no meaningful explanation offered by these officials as to why they needed or how they would use this U.S. person information.”

Recently, Rhodes was mocked by Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka for his lack of academic credentials, but when he was challenged by the same to debate, Rhodes declined.