The “need” had to be specific and spelled out in writing to even apply for the justification, period. If it was given without this, which we can now assume it was, a long line of people are in serious trouble because of the sign-on and sign-off logs for the departments on the days it was done.
if it was done without logging and/or written justification, my very limited understanding is that it would have been illegal.
the relaxing of the unmasking was deliberate imho in the sense of having the effect of spreading the responsibility. these guys are experts at spreading responsibility. by spreading responsibility, it becomes difficult for the blame to be pinned on any one person. that pattern goes back to sometime around 1993 IIRC.
Also another next step would be to hide the truth in numbers. It would look like “we performed hundreds of unmaskings as a routine matter. it could be that trump and his associates were just caught up in the mix. if so, it could have been incidental, or even accidental.”
after the info was shared between agencies, any of dozens of people could have leaked it to the media. that is the really illegal part. good luck tracking down whoever it might have been.
trump and co seem to be playing it smart by letting the information drip slowly out, much like watergate. in doing so they maximize damage to the democrats. maybe it is all they can do. personally i hope they can do more. the difference between now and watergate is of course that the democrats are involved in the crimes and the coverup, which of course changes the direction of the MSM spin.
the most interesting thing will be if rice is called to congress to testify. there will likely be other confederates such as (perhaps) rogers. after that it becomes what president (obama) knew and when he knew it. obama is in tahiti now— so when will he come testify before congress? we are in uncharted constitutional waters starting right about now. imho for the future of the country, at least, those waters need to be charted.
[[The “need” had to be specific and spelled out in writing to even apply for the justification, period.]]
The point is that there is no specific felony involved if they don’t do that- they can also ‘explain away’ any criticism by claiming there was a need- the fact is that it’s subjective- there is no objective guidelines or specific objective rule- unfortunately-
We all know they are scum, but they are sneaky scum who know how to skirt the actual law-