More on Susan Rice - an article by Jeffrey Rodack

·         Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser for President Barack Obama, ordered U.S. spy agencies to produce "detailed spreadsheets" involving Donald Trump and his aides during the 2016 presidential race, former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova said.

"What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals," diGenova told The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group.

He said the overheard conversations involved no illegal activity by any of the Trump associates or anyone they were speaking with,

"In short, the only apparent illegal activity was the unmasking of the people in the calls," deGenova said.

His comments came as Fox News reported that Rice had requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance.

The unmasked names of people associated with Trump were sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan, according to the news network.

The names were part of incidental electronic surveillance of Trump and people close to him, for up to a year before he took office, Fox News reported.

"Rice is no stranger to controversy," Fox's Adam Housley said. "As the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, she appeared on several Sunday news shows to defend the administration's later debunked claim that the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. consulate in Libya was triggered by an Internet video."

Meanwhile, The Daily Caller quoted retired Col. James Waurishuk, as saying a number of people in the Obama administration had to be involved to launch such a political spying program.

"It's unbelievable of the level and degree of the administration to look for information on Donald Trump and his associates, his campaign team and his transition team," he said.

"This is really, really serious stuff."

Michael Doran, a former NSC senior director told The Daily Caller News Foundation that "somebody blew a hole in the wall between national security services and partisan politics."

He noted the leaking of the information is a crime.

"That's a felony," he said. "And you can get 10 years for that. It is a tremendous abuse of the system."