CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto told Anderson Cooper tonight that the news about Susan Rice allegedly being involved in the “unmasking” of Trump transition officials appears to be a “distraction” from the bigger picture on Russia.

Earlier today, Sciutto said on The Lead that former intelligence officials from Democratic and Republican administrations told him that “based on what they know, this unmasking, if it happened, would not be out of bounds,” because of the approval process required and because unmasking is not the same as leaking.

He spoke with Anderson Cooper tonight and provided this statement he received from someone “close to” Rice:

“The idea that Ambassador Rice improperly sought the identities of Americans is false. There is nothing unusual about making these requests when serving as a senior national security official, whether Democrat or Republican.”

Sciutto again brought up what he has heard from those former intel officials and said the following:

“This appears to be a story largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from this larger investigation.”

He added a few minutes later, “Now, the open question is, does an Ambassador Rice or someone else in that position who’s requested unmasking then share that information with someone else? That’s possible. We don’t know that at this point, but it’s not sort of put on a memo and distributed around, you know, 35 people in the White House, at least by protocol.”

The Washington Free Beacon earlier today highlighted Rice’s March 22nd appearance on PBS NewsHour, in which Rice was asked about Congressman Devin Nunes‘s disclosure of “incidental collection” of Team Trump communications at the center of all this.

Rice said, “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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