An award-winning national security correspondent for CIRCA News believes Congress needs to launch an investigation into Obama-era unmasking and warrantless surveillance of Americans, according to an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Sara A. Carter, of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group, has been an overseas war correspondent for the bulk of her professional life and grew up in the Middle East.

She was one of the first reporters to reveal Obama administration political espionage, and unprecedented unmasking and surveillance of Americans by using the national security apparatus. The Obama administration loosened the privacy protections for innocent Americans in 2011 – including accessing information from priests, attorney/client relationships, and doctors, she said.

The administration scoured Americans’ private conversations “at an exponential rate,” she said. From 2011 to January 2017, the unmasking increased over 300 percent. She also revealed the Obama administration was accessing emails at a rate of one out of every 20 Americans, an incredible 5 percent of citizens.

With reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization before Congress, Carter believes Congress needs a full investigation into the unmasking that she has revealed.

She believes Congress should subpoena Obama officials Susan Rice, Samantha Power and John Brennan as well as understand who was unmasked, why and what they were looking for, as she does not think it was national security related.

There was early evidence of the Obama administration using government national security tools to accomplish their political goals. Journalist Lee Smith wrote in April about the Obama team unmasking what their political opponents on the Iran deal were doing and saying. He said, they “have exposed themselves to risk, by creating a potential criminal trail that may expose systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection.”

She sees no evidence, however, of “fire” from Russian collusion by President Donald Trump as the Democrats have alleged, but admitted there was some “smoke” because of Donald J. Trump Jr.’s meeting.

Interestingly, Carter did say “there is evidence of money changing hands with Hillary Clinton’s team and the Russians,” in the July interview with TheDCNF. She believes the Clinton Foundation investigation is on-going, and, based on her contacts, she doesn’t think it is completely closed.

Carter also revealed in this video interview what she is hearing from within the FBI about the politicized Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who has long standing animus against Michael Flynn and others.

Carter told TheDCNF during the interview the concern about many insiders who are working against Trump’s policies and plans, some of whom supported Hillary Clinton or Obama. Some Trump officials, surprisingly enough, are even boasting publicly of thwarting Trump’s agenda.

For more on Carter, follow her at CIRCA News or on Twitter @SaraCarterDC.