President says he merely gave intelligence community 'policy direction' but critics say White House must have been aware

Did President Obama know about US spying on its friends, apparently going back more than a decade in the case of Angela Merkel? The answer is either "Of course he did, idiot" or "It's plausible he didn't, actually" – depending on whom you ask.

The White House message is clear: the president was in the dark.

The Wall Street Journal quoted an anonymous administration official on Sunday saying that the president didn't find out until this summer about spying on allies and he immediately ordered it stopped. The Washington Post published a corroborating report Monday.

Obama himself told ABC News on Monday that the White House merely gives the intelligence community "policy direction":

I'm the final user of all the intelligence that they gather. But they're involved in a whole wide range of issues. We give them policy direction. But what we've seen over the last several years is their capacities continue to develop and expand, and that's why I'm initiating now a review to make sure that what they're able to do doesn't necessarily mean what they should be doing.

To members of the intelligence community, the president distancing himself in this way from data collection that fed his daily briefings is a betrayal. The intelligence officials involved aren't taking it sitting down, either. "Current and former US intelligence officials" are talking to Ken Dilanian of the Los Angeles Times, among others. The White House "signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders," he reports:

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.'

Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianLAT) Slack jawed that people seem to believe the WH didn't know the NSA was collecting on friendly foreign leaders. Who, then, was the customer?

On the other side of the argument are those who point out that the president's intelligence briefings aren't sourced line by line and that there are layers of mastication and management between the president and the analysts. One of those layers is the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, which an NSA spokesperson pointed to on Monday in response to questions about its activities (h/t @emptywheel):

"NSA is not a free agent," said NSA spokesperson Vanee Vines. "The agency's activities stem from the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, which guides prioritization for the operation, planning, and programming of US intelligence analysis and collection." The framework is approved by the top leaders of the government, but it leaves the question of how best to gather intelligence to the individual agencies.

emptywheel (@emptywheel) @joshuafoust It gets POTUS approval. Approving, "Let's continue focus on Euro leaders in wake of fin crisis" different fr "let's tap Angela"

With Senator Feinstein's startling about-face Monday on the strength of government oversight, it appears that a broader conflict between the intelligence community and elected officials may be brewing. John Schindler is a former NSA employee and a tireless explainer and advocate of the intelligence community perspective @20committee:

John Schindler (@20committee) You know the problem with throwing spies under the bus? They know stuff. And some will talk to the media too. #2waystreet