Former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power was caught off guard by reporter Nicholas Ballasy who asked her why she had made so many “unmasking” requests at the end of her tenure at the U.N.

Watch the interview below. She appeared to be rattled and taken off guard by the questions asked by Ballasy. Ballasy told SaraACarter.com that Power’s handler asked him not to ask the former ambassador any more questions after he had already questioned her extensively.

Power’s “pushed back on reports of her frequent ‘unmasking’ requests in 2016 during the presidential campaign, calling the accusations “completely false,” she told Ballasy. She spoke to the reporter after an event in Washington, where she delivered the 2019 Daniel Patrick Moynihan lecture sponsored by the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Ballasy’s interview with Power was first reported on PJ Media.

Power, a critic of President Trump, had unmasking requests that totaled more than 260 in 2016, according to lawmakers and as reported by SaraACarter.com.

However, in October 2017, then House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy said Power told the panel of lawmakers that the “unmasking” requests made in her name were directed by her.

She testified about the alleged 260 requests to “unmask” Americans caught up in the surveillance of non-U.S. citizens. Her testimony contradicts her statements made to Ballsey.

Gowdy told Fox News at the time that Power told his committee that she was not always the official making the requests in her name. Confusing, yes, said lawmakers at the time, who apparently couldn’t get a straight answer from the former U.N. Ambassador.

Gowdy told Fox News at the time, “I think if she were on your show, she would say those requests to unmask may have been attributed to her, but they greatly exceed by an exponential factor the requests she actually made.”

“So, that’s her testimony, and she was pretty emphatic in it,” he added. “The intelligence ? community has assigned this number of requests to her. Her perspective, her testimony is, they may be under my name, but I did not make those requests.”

“So, we’ve got to get tot he bottom of that,” Gowdy told Fox News. “If there is someone else making requests on behalf of a principal in the intelligence community, we need to know that because we’re getting ready to reauthorize a program that’s really important to the country, but also has a masking component to it.”

For more on this story go to PJ Media.