The Daily Signal has been able to get 217 pages from the National Security Administration (NSA) under FOIA. Those pages show the huge effort to “torpedo” the Trump administration before they even took office with an effort to go after Gen. Michael Flynn, the man who would be National Security Advisor for President Donald Trump.

Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador in the period between November 2016 and Jan. 2017 was intercepted by intelligence officials for the Obama administration, and then his name was unmasked.

The Signal requested the information in March 2021 and didn’t get the documents until June 30, 2023.

Some of the names were released by the acting Director of National Intelligence under Trump, Ric Grenell, in 2020.

Among the people was then-Vice President Joe Biden.

The documents reveal that Obama administration officials, from Vice President Joe Biden down to several ambassadors and many officials in the Treasury and Energy departments, gained access to secret information about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President-elect Trump’s choice for national security adviser.

The documents obtained by The Daily Signal include raw information of requests and other messages from these officials to the National Security Agency in late November 2016 through early January 2017, as well as emails among NSA officials explaining why the information was shared.

The documents also show that three people who are now top Biden officials were also involved in the unmasking scandal and got access to information on Flynn.

Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of staff for his entire second term, is now secretary of veterans affairs under Biden.

Samantha Power, Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, made numerous requests for information on Flynn. In the Biden administration, Power is administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

And Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, deputy secretary at Obama’s Energy Department, has been Biden’s homeland security adviser since he took office.

We’ve written about Power’s involvement in unmaskings in the past.

That helped contribute to the Russia hoax that the Democrats were pushing.

But there were more:

The documents obtained by The Daily Signal also show that at least seven U.S. officials working with NATO were provided with information on Flynn, including then-NATO Ambassador Douglas Lute.

John Tefft, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, as well as several members of his staff whose names were redacted, also sought and got information on Flynn.

Obama’s ambassador to Turkey, John Bass, obtained information on Flynn. NSA’s internal emails say the information was provided to Bass so he could “better understand and assess the foreign intelligence information contained therein.”

Other people who also got access to Flynn’s information? Obama’s ambassador to Italy, John Phillips, and his top staff, as well as Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, along with other Treasury Department officials, including Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Raskin, wife of Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

Flynn was ultimately pardoned, but this effort was wild.

How did they justify all this when unmasking of Americans is only supposed to be under very limited circumstances?

When Sherwood-Randall got access, the NSA email on the requests by the Energy Department said: “This information is crucial, as the Deputy Secretary of Energy continues to oversee the transition of the Department to the incoming administration.”

Sorry, but that’s ridiculous; that’s not a justification to dig into a political opponent.

I know I keep saying this given all the scandals rolling out of the Biden administration, but here’s another one the Republicans need to go after and clean house on. This is banana republic kind of stuff, and we see the harm that was done to the country because of what followed.