Washington Free Beacon Senior Writer Adam Kredo appeared on Fox News's "Hannity" Friday night, where he told host Sean Hannity that it is "unprecedented" how many people were unmasked by then-United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power during the final year of the Obama administration.
Power is believed to have made "hundreds" of unmasking requests to "identify individuals named in classified intelligence community reports related to Trump and his presidential transition team, according to multiple sources who said the behavior is unprecedented for an official in her position," according to the Washington Free Beacon.
Hannity asked Kredo how Power would ever have the authority to make the unmasking requests, and then asked whether this has ever happened previously to his knowledge.
"No, it's truly unprecedented," Kredo said. "It's certainly odd, and I think the House Intelligence Committee, rightfully so, has subpoenaed her to find out what is going on here. Look, it's hundreds of unmasking requests in just the final year of the Obama administration."
He talked about how it was strange that a United Nations ambassador would be making unmasking requests of President Donald Trump's associates during the 2016 presidential election. Those same unmasked people would in some cases later become Trump administration officials.
"The fact that this information subsequently leaked to the press, I think raises even more questions about why a U.N ambassador over in Turtle Bay needs to unmask," Kredo said.
Later in the interview, Hannity asked a hypothetical question about whether there would be a "very abusively biased, corrupt, and unbalanced" team under Special counsel Robert Mueller if there was no "deep state," unmasking under Power, or leaking.
"No, we wouldn't be in this situation at all. In fact, it would be a completely different White House, a White House that is free to pursue the policies that the electors wanted when it comes to foreign policy, particularly Iran, scrapping that deal, all of those other issues, rebuilding the relationship with allies like Israel," Kredo said.
"We wouldn't have to deal with a story a day in the Washington Post or the New York Times detailing highly classified leaks," he said.