ANDREW NAPOLITANO: I was mad watching this because I come from an environment where you take an oath to answer truthfully, and the questioner asks you a question and then you don't answer, there should be consequences to that. You shouldn't laugh at the questioner, which is what we just saw. [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [(R-SC)], Sen. Graham, though in my view unleashed the power of spying now finds himself spied on. And he can't get a straight answer. So what happens is the [National Security Agency] captures all phone calls and all key strokes and stores it, and then someone in the White House says, that conversation Lindsey Graham had with so and so on such and such a date, give us the transcript of it, and tell us the proper names that are in it. That's the unmasking. So does he have a right to know? Of course he has a right to know. But the danger is when the unmasking, the revealing of the contents of the conversation and the names of the participants is done for a political reason not a national security reason. That's a danger to the republic.
STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): And that's what we believe happened to Michael Flynn. And there are all these stories about Michael Flynn said this. It was pretty much the transcript of what he said on a private conversation splayed out in America's newspaper.
NAPOLITANO: Edited by people at The Washington Post, or, perhaps, edited by the people who gave it to the The Washington Post to make General Flynn look so bad that the president fired him.
DOOCY: So Lindsey Graham who's on the [Senate Intelligence Committee] you would think, first of all, if you're in the intel community, don't spy on somebody on the committee. But, secondly, you would think that he would be able to call somebody and say hey, did you guys spy on me and was I unmasked?
NAPOLITANO: Because there is a culture, Steve, in this community. We're talking about the intelligence community and its connection with the political community. Susan Rice, the west wing where you don't want to talk about what you do. Senator Rand Paul [(R-KY)] was also spied upon, meaning unmasked for political reasons. And he believes that he and Senator Graham are not the only senators who had their conversations revealed and names revealed for political purposes. You can make anybody look ridiculous, even bad by selectively editing the conversation and revealing it as if it were the whole conversation.
