Reuters

U.S. officials loyal to President Obama began the week by denying that he knew about NSA spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and leaders of other allied countries. Now other current and former intelligence officials say the White House knew all along—and they appear to have implicated Hillary Clinton in approving the high-stakes spying.

The Los Angeles Times has the scoop:

The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping. Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the president has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close allies.

Did Obama know himself? The article stops short of saying so, but describes the information flow between the NSA and the White House in these terms (emphasis added):

... if a foreign leader is targeted for eavesdropping, the relevant U.S. ambassador and the National Security Council staffer at the White House who deals with the country are given regular reports, said two former senior intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing classified information. Obama may not have been specifically briefed on NSA operations targeting a foreign leader's cellphone or email communications, one of the officials said. "But certainly the National Security Council and senior people across the intelligence community knew exactly what was going on, and to suggest otherwise is ridiculous." If U.S. spying on key foreign leaders was news to the White House, current and former officials said, then White House officials have not been reading their briefing books. Some U.S. intelligence officials said they were being blamed by the White House for conducting surveillance that was authorized under the law and utilized at the White House. "People are furious," said a senior intelligence official who would not be identified discussing classified information. "This is officially the White House cutting off the intelligence community." Any decision to spy on friendly foreign leaders is made with input from the State Department, which considers the political risk, the official said. Any useful intelligence is then given to the president's counter-terrorism advisor, Lisa Monaco, among other White House officials.

So what do we make of this? Here's what we know for sure: There are some U.S. officials in Washington leaking Team Obama's narrative to journalists, and other current and former U.S. officials leaking the surveillance state's narrative. As much as Team Obama has done to empower Team Surveillance, they have distinct interests. Both have proved willing to lie to advance their interests. And whether Obama knew or not, these leaks are going to make it extremely difficult for him to have plausible deniability when he speaks with allied leaders (though Marcy Wheeler finds it plausible that Obama really didn't know).