Former national security advisor Susan Rice forcefully denied on Tuesday that she purposely collected classified intelligence information about Americans associated with the Trump campaign, and said any suspicion that she leaked names to the press were ridiculous.

'The allegations that somehow Obama administration officials utilized intelligence for political purposes, that's absolutely false,' she said.

She used the same words – 'absolutely false' – to deny a report in The Daily Caller that she had requested intelligence information on Trump associates and compiled it into a spreadsheet.

'No spreadsheet, no nothing of the sort,' Rice said.

Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice forcefully denied on Tuesday that she or anyone in the White House ever went out of their way to 'unmask' the identities of Donald turmp or his associates from raw intelligence reports

Rice sat down with MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell for a noontime interview that the network hastily began promoting at 11:30 a.m.

She has been the subject of numerous news reports in the past three days, alleging that she was at the top of a plot to snoop on people in Trump's inner circle.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters late Tuesday morning that it was suspicious to see news reports denying Rice's involvement by citing anonymous sources.

'You would assume that if you stood by the comments that you made several weeks ago, that you wouldn't need someone who was close to you ... to defend it,' he said.

Spicer singled out CNN for labeling the Rice saga a diversion.

'I get that at some point they have an invested angle and narrative in this,' he said, but 'the more we find out about this, the more you learn that there was clearly something there.'

A half-hour later, Rice blasted President Donald Trump's tweeted claims a month ago that Obama had authorized surveillance of him and his team before and after the November election.

'There was no such collection, surveillance on Trump Tower or Trump individuals ... and by that I mean directed by the White House or targeted at Trump individuals,' she said.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said a half-hour before Rice's interview that some news outlets defending Rice have 'an invested angle and narrative'

House Intelligence Committee ranking Democrat Adam Schiff said Susan Rice is 'a perennial target for the hard right'

White House officials, including any president, Rice added, 'do not have the ability to order such collection.'

'That can only come from the Justice Department through an established process. It never originates in the White House. So not only did it not occur, it didn't occur and it could not have occurred – directed by the White House.'

Rice said she was 'surprised' and 'shocked' by Trump's accusation, saying 'it had no basis in fact.'

'And it wasn't typical of the way presidents treat their predecessors.'

Rice was interviewed on MSNBC in an appearance that the network hurriedly announced a half-hour before airtime.

President Trump retweeted a message from Internet newsman Matt Drudge on Tuesday, pointing to an article that claimed Rice ordered intelligence agencies to spy on him

Host Andrea Mitchell asked her whether she ever intentionally 'unmasked' Trump-related names 'in order to spy on them and expose them.

'Absolutely not for any political purposes, to spy, expose, anything,' Rice responded.

WHAT IS UNMASKING? When U.S. intelligence services conduct surveillance of foreign targets, it's possible that American citizens can be swept up in recorded conversations, intercepted emails or other surveillance. That can happen when Americans who are not targets of an investigation are 'incidentally' captured talking to a target. it can also occur when targets merely mention them during a conversation or in a document. When this happens, intelligence analysts routinely delete the Americans' names and replace them with vague identifiers like 'U.S. Person Number One' or 'Person A' – masking their identity from other government officials who may look at reports. Senior intelligence officials can request the 'unmasking' of those names under certain circumstances, but that creates a risk that the names will be leaked. Advertisement

She also flatly denied leaking the name of Gen. Michael Flynn, her successor, to reporters.

'I leaked nothing to nobody, and never have and never would,' Rice insisted.

Flynn was forced out of the national security advisor position after a transcript of an intercepted phone call was leaked to The Washington Post, detailing a conversation he had last year with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. – a discussion that reportedly included mention of rolling back U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

Tuesday afternoon on CNN, Rep. Adam Schiff – the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee – defended Rice and said she has been 'a perennial target for the hard right.'

Schiff said there is 'a strong desire by the White House that we lose our focus, that we not pursue the investigation of Russia, particularly as it might impact the Trump campaign.'

He also said continuing Rice-bashing 'is appealing to the Breitbart crowd.'

Rice explained Tuesday that it isn't uncommon for White House or cabinet officials to request the unmasking of names of U.S. citizens when they are incidentally snared in a spying net.

'There were occasions when I would receive a report in which a U.S. person was referred to. Name not provided, just "U.S. person",' she recalled.

'And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance of the report, and assess its significance, it was necessary to find out, or request the information as to who that U.S. official was.'

Rice said intelligence officials 'can't be passive consumers' of information.

But 'there's no equivalence between so-called unmasking and leaking,' she insisted.

The Daily Caller report quoted former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who said: 'What was produced by the intelligence community at the request of Ms. Rice were detailed spreadsheets of intercepted phone calls with unmasked Trump associates in perfectly legal conversations with individuals.

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul appeared on Morning and demanded that Rice testify under oath before Congress

Rice is being blamed for requesting that members of President Trump's teams names were unmasked in intelligence reports

There is not necessarily anything illegal or unusual about a national security adviser seeking to unmask names in raw reports, in order to fully understand the meaning of intercepted conversations.

But in this case those identities – including the name of then-National Security Advisor Mike Flynn – were subsequently leaked and made public.

That is a federal felony.

Paul told the Morning Joe panel that Rice needed to be asked whether President Obama ordered these names unmasked and whether he knew about it.

'This is a big deal,' the Kentucky Republican said. 'If the outgoing administration was actually, literally sifting through things and part of the administration already said we were going to scatter, we were going to get as much information, we were going to scatter it out there publicly to try and harm the Trump administration.'

Former U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice asked intelligence agencies dozens of times to 'unmask' the names of Donald Trump associates that were redacted from raw intelligence reports, it has emerged

Rice, shown in the White House situation room (at left) listening to former president Barack Obama, is now at the center of the firestorm over whether they snooped on Trump during the 2016 election season

'This was a witch hunt that began with the Obama administration,' Paul charged. 'Sour grapes on the way out the door.'

'They were going to use the intelligence apparatus to attack Trump and I think they did,' the senator added.

Paul had previously called the allegations against Rice a smoking gun.'

Today he said that 'this is actually, eerily similar to what Trump accused them of which is eavesdropping on conversations for political reasons.'

The Republican senator also excused away Trump's original claims of 'wiretapping,' because 'we don't have wires in our phones anymore ... for the most part we use the term wiretapping to mean eavesdropping.'

President Donald Trump claimed in a series of March 4 tweets that Obama had 'wiretapped' him before the November election; he later clarified that he was talking broadly about secret surveillance

The first drip of information hinting at Rice's involvement came Friday when Fox News reported that the names of several Trumpworld figures were exposed by someone 'very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world.'

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said last week that the Trump administration had uncovered unspecified material 'in the normal course of business,' which was then shared with the House Intelligence Committee's Republican chairman Devin Nunes.

Bloomberg reported that the National Security Council was conducting a review of U.S. policy on how people's identities can be unmasked after their communications are captured incidentally in the course of conducting foreign surveillance.

That routine inquiry apparently uncovered a pattern of Rice's requests.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes got a sneak peek last week at intelligence reports at the White House which are now believed to be security logs showing how often Rice asked to know which Trump officials were identified 'incidentally' in court-approved foreign snooping

White House Press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday that unspecified documents seen by Nunes were uncovered 'in the normal course of business'

The names of U.S. citizens who aren't the targets of court-approved snooping are typically replaced with designations such as 'U.S. Person One' or 'Person A' before reports can be circulated to the broad variety of American intelligence agencies.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, one of the Trump administration intelligence officials who showed Nunes the mysterious materials last week, was conducting the 'unmasking' review.

He brought his concerns about Rice's behavior to the White House counsel's office in February – before President Trump began tweeting claims on March 4 that the Obama administration 'wiretapped' him at his private New York city office.

Rice had access to intelligence reports that also contained 'valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration,' according to Bloomberg.

It's not known whether the president was told, before his now famous tweet storm, what the White House counsel's office had learned.

Trump hasn't stopped tweeting about reports that support his March claims that he was surveilled for political purposes

But Trump told Financial Times on Saturday that his tweets are 'turning out to be true.'

Rice insisted last month that she was in the dark about any efforts to identify Trump-linked private individuals in intelligence reports, after Nunes publicly referred to 'unmasking.'

'I know nothing about this,' she told PBS. 'I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today.'

'The real story turns out to be SURVEILLANCE and LEAKING! Find the leakers,' Trump tweeted on Sunday.

He continued to cite the Fox News Channel on Monday, writing on Twitter that the network reported 'from multiple sources: "There was electronic surveillance of Trump, and people close to Trump. This is unprecedented".'