Ezra Cohen-Watnick ran intelligence for the National Security Council. There, he decided collecting his colleagues’ phone and email data was a good idea.
A former National Security Council official now working for Attorney General Jeff Sessions explored ways to surreptitiously monitor the communications of White House staff for leaks or perceived political disloyalty to Donald Trump, according to three former Trump NSC officials familiar with the effort.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick, whom former national security adviser Michael Flynn brought onto the NSC as senior director for intelligence, sought technical solutions in early 2017 for collecting and analyzing phone and other data on White House colleagues for interactions with reporters. He portrayed his desired leak hunt as an “insider threat” detection effort, according to the ex-officials. Those who heard of it presumed it would focus on NSC staffers held over from the Obama administration.
It is unknown whether Cohen-Watnick’s efforts actually resulted in any monitoring program. The former officials noted the overwhelming technical and legal hurdles to doing so. One called it “wholly inappropriate” for Cohen-Watnick, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, to do anything of the sort, considering it a blatant attempt at intimidating his colleagues. Another, who agreed the proposed effort was inappropriate, likened it to a “Keystone Cop thing.”
“This seemed designed to intimidate rather than protect national security,” said a different ex-NSC official familiar with the proposal.
Some staffers considered Cohen-Watnick’s insider-threat focus ironic, considering that Cohen-Watnick himself reportedly played a role in a Trump White House effort to leak intelligence reports to Devin Nunes, the House intelligence committee chairman. Nunes then subsequently used the reports in a failed attempt to reinforce Trump’s baseless accusation that Barack Obama had placed his camp under surveillance. Cohen-Watnick’s attorney, Mark Zaid, has denied Cohen-Watnick’s involvement in the March 2017 “unmasking” Nunes episode.
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EXCLUSIVE. The young man in charge of intel at the National Security Council pushed for a major spy operation—*inside the White House.* https://t.co/nJZFeMS5qU
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) May 14, 2018
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