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A high-level group in the White House is stonewalling attempts by a government watchdog to obtain records about the Obama administrations so-called unmasking of people on President Trumps campaign and transition teams, according to Judicial Watch.

The government watchdog group told Fox News that the National Security Council, a White House group that advises the president on national security matters and foreign affairs, responded in a May 23 letter that the records have been transferred to President Obamas as-yet-unopened library in Chicago and wont be available to the public for five years.

Judicial Watchs efforts to obtain these documents comes as Fox News broke a story in April regarding National Security Council Adviser Susan Rice being among Obama appointees who during the last presidential election, asked for identities of U.S. citizens linked to the Trump campaign and transition teams who were caught up in U.S. intelligencesurveillance.

Disclosure of thenames of American citizensidentified in the course ofintelligence collection activities is known as unmasking.

Rices personal involvement in unmasking the identities of U.S. persons from [U.S. intelligence] collection activities is extraordinarily unusual and smacks of an unlawful domestic political intelligence operation being run out of the Obama White House, Chris Farrell, director of research and investigation for Judicial Watch, told Fox News.

The president, Congress and law enforcement can gain access to the records. Judicial Watch will fight for them, too.

The secrecy around these materials also is raising hackles for other reasons.

"Itcosts taxpayers over $100 million a year to support presidential libraries thatcan take as long as 100 years to release archival material on how a presidentreallygoverned, said John Fund, former Fox News contributor, and authorof Fraudstersand Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk and Stealing Elections: How Voter FraudThreatens Our Democracy.

He added: Outrageous. Thisrepresentsa bad deal for taxpayers, awhitewashingof the historical record and a playpen for the politicallyconnected boosters of an ex-president. Reform is urgently needed."

Malia Zimmerman is an award-winning investigative reporter focusing on crime, homeland security, illegal immigration crime, terrorism and political corruption. Follow her on twitter at @MaliaMZimmerman

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Obama administration records on Trump team 'unmasking ...

Obama is expected to campaign for Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, a rare decision for a former president. The decision shows that Democrats appear helpless without Obama, hoping that he will help them recapture the magic.

Northam has tried to nationalize the race by positioning himself as an anti-Trump Democrat.

Ive been listening carefully to Donald Trump, and I think hes a narcissistic maniac, Northam saidin his campaign ads during the primaries.

Northam already has an eight-point polling lead over Republican candidate Ed Gillespie in the race, after the Republican nominee nearly lost his primary to challenger Corey Stewart.

A Quinnipiac University poll showsthat 47 percent supported Northam, while only 39 percent backed Gillespie.

The state is currently led by Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee Chairman during Bill Clintons presidency.

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Barack Obama Plans Return to Campaign Trail to Save Democrats

The text of the Senate's 142-page Obamacare repeal bill had been public for just a few hours Thursday when the nation's most influential private citizen weighed in - Barack Obama.

The plan is "not a health care bill," Obama declared in a 939-word message to his nearly 53 million followers on Facebook. "It's a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America."

The 44th president did not mention his successor, Donald Trump, but his scathing criticism and urgent tone - imploring his supporters to speak out against the "fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation" - set up a direct public fight with the current White House occupant over the future of the nation's health care system.

"I am very supportive of the Senate #HealthcareBill," Trump wrote in a tweet a short while later. "Look forward to making it really special! Remember, ObamaCare is dead."

The high-stakes confrontation is virtually unprecedented in modern times between a former and current president, and it runs counter to Obama's own professed interest in receding from the limelight. Just days before departing the White House, he joked that he looked forward to not hearing himself "talk so darn much."

Beyond his self-deprecation, Obama explained that he wanted to afford respect to Trump to pursue his own agenda, citing the precedent set by George W. Bush's infrequent public statements after Obama took office in 2009. Instead, since Trump's inauguration, Obama has made clear that he does not intend to stay on the sidelines as Trump, with help from Republican lawmakers, seeks to dismantle his legacy.

Obama spoke out in January after Trump implemented a travel ban on citizens of seven majority-Muslim nations, declaring that "American values are at stake" and that he was "heartened" by protests across the country. This month, Obama criticized Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord that his administration signed in 2015, ruing "an absence of American leadership."

But it is on health care that Obama has perhaps the most to lose and, with his lengthy Facebook statement, has signaled his intention to have the most political influence. Though he opened his message with an attempt to elevate the debate - emphasizing the need to listen to those with opposing points of view - he quickly framed Republican motivations as purely partisan.

"I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party," Obama wrote, suggesting that the GOP is acting simply to undo "something that Democrats did." His mention of "meanness" in the Senate bill was a swipe at Trump having called the House version of the repeal legislation "mean" during a private meeting with Republican senators last week.

The fight over the Affordable Care Act, the former president's biggest legislative victory, has sharply divided the two major political parties from the start. The bill was approved by Congress without a single Republican vote, after which the GOP successfully used it as a campaign issue against Democrats in the 2010 midterms that led to Republicans taking control of the House.

Now the tables have turned as Republicans attempt to make good on their years-long pledge to overturn the law. House Republicans needed two attempts before they successfully crafted and approved their own repeal bill without bipartisan support.

In recent weeks, Trump has lambasted Democrats as standing in the way.

At a campaign-style rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Wednesday, Trump declared that "Obamacare is a disaster" and added that "if we went and got the single greatest health care plan in the history of the world, we would not get one Democrat vote because they're obstructionists."

Democrats defended Obama's decision to wade into the political fight by accusing Trump of leveling personal attacks against him on a regular basis. In March, Trump, with no evidence, erroneously accused Obama of ordering a wiretap on Trump Tower in New York - an Obama spokesman called the accusation "simply false."

And this week, Trump indirectly criticized Obama for not doing more to secure the release of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died in Cincinnati days after returning home after being detained 17 months in North Korea.

"Donald Trump has invited Barack Obama into the arena," said Simon Rosenberg, founder of NDN, a liberal think tank. "No president has trashed a former president more than Trump has trashed Obama - personally and in terms of his legacy. It's been direct, persistent and out of bounds."

Obama is "obligated" to weigh in, Rosenberg said. "I don't think he wanted to play a major role or to get intimately involved. But it's become very personal. There comes a point where you can't stand aside."

Obama's public influence remains undeniable. Within three hours, his Facebook message had garnered more than 300,000 "likes" and 97,000 shares.

At the same time, his prominence in the debate highlights a dilemma for Democrats who are undergoing a painful search for a galvanizing agenda and new party leader in the wake of Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump last November.

After Democrat Jon Ossoff's loss in the Georgia special election for a vacant House seat this week, Republicans, including Trump, gloated that they hoped House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., would remain in their jobs, citing their unpopularity with some moderate voters.

"I certainly hope the Democrats do not force Nancy P out," Trump wrote in a tweet. "That would be very bad for the Republican Party - and please let Cryin' Chuck stay!"

The bad news for Trump is that his own job approval ratings have plunged below 40 percent in some recent polls in the wake of his struggles to move forward with his agenda and an ongoing FBI investigation into his campaign's contact with Russian operatives.

By comparison, Obama's approval ratings this month stood at 63 percent, according to Gallup. For that matter, George W. Bush, who left office with just 35 percent of the public supporting him, was at 59 percent approval in the same Gallup survey.

"My guess is that part of the urgency of him weighing in is that a vote is happening within a week," Rosenberg said of Obama. "Trump and the Republicans are drawing him in and it's to their own detriment in doing so. He's still arguably the most popular and potent political force in either party and he can have a big impact."

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'Meanness at the core': Obama jumps back into fray to slam ...

Former President Barack Obama defended his signature legislative achievement in a lengthy Facebook post on Thursday | Getty

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday denounced the Senate proposal to repeal and replace parts of the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, calling the Republican bill a massive transfer of wealth to the richest people in America with a fundamental meanness at its core.

Obama, who has largely stayed out of the political fray and refrained from publicly criticizing President Donald Trump since leaving office, defended his signature legislative achievement in a lengthy Facebook post on Thursday, hours after Senate leaders unveiled the bill. And he accused Republicans of promoting legislation that will harm Americans.

Story Continued Below

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill, Obama wrote. Its a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else.

Simply put, if theres a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family this bill will do you harm, he added. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

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In the post, Obama acknowledged that Republicans have run on a platform of repealing Obamacare for years, but called on them to work with Democrats to offer fixes to the health care system rather than support the proposed overhaul.

He also argued, as he has previously, that his 2010 legislation is imperfect but has helped many people.

I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win, that theres a reason we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hopefully, its to make peoples lives better, not worse, Obama wrote.

But right now, after eight years, the legislation rushed through the House and the Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite, he added.

Obama also called on his supporters to call lawmakers and voice their opposition to the proposal.

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Obama says Senate health care bill has 'fundamental meanness ...

The Obama administration is under fresh scrutiny for its response to Russian meddling in the election after new details emerged this week about how the White House weighed its actions against the 2016 political environment.

Then-President Obama was too cautious in the months leading up to the election, frustrated Democratic lawmakers and strategists say.

It was inadequate. I think they could have done a better job informing the American people of the extent of the attack, said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee who co-chairs the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.

And even after the election was over, they say, the penalties Obama levied were too mild to appropriately punish what by all accounts was an unprecedented attack on a U.S. election.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), another House Intelligence member, called the penalties barely a slap on the wrist. Sen. John McCainJohn McCainFrustrated Dems say Obama botched Russia response Coats: Trump seemed obsessed with Russia probe The Hill's Whip List: Senate ObamaCare repeal bill MORE (R-Ariz.), who supports tougher sanctions Russia, said in a statement Friday that the administration abjectly failed to deter Russian aggression and failed to impose any meaningful costs on Russia.

Some Republicans argue the Obama administration only started to take the Russia threat seriously after President Trump had won the election.

Trump has called the influence operation a hoax and dismissed the various inquiries into Russian interference in the election which include looking for possible collusion between his campaign and Moscow as a witch hunt.

By the way, if Russia was working so hard on the 2016 Election, it all took place during the Obama Admin. Why didn't they stop them? Trump tweeted Thursday.

The Obama administration announced on Oct. 7 that the theft and release of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails was part of a widespread campaign intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.

But it was not until January that it issued a separate declassified intelligence report that assessed Moscow was attempting to tip the election in t Trumps favor and only in December did Obama approve a modest package of retaliatory sanctions and expel a compound of Russian diplomats.

Former Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson on Wednesday told lawmakers that the White House held back on responding to Russia because it didnt want to play into fears, propagated by then-candidate Trump, that the election would be rigged.

One of the candidates, as you'll recall, was predicting that the election was going to be rigged in some way, Johnson said. And so we were concerned that, by making the statement, we might in and of itself be challenging the integrity of the election process itself.

Trump had repeatedly claimed that the outcome of the election would be rigged against him, alleging widespread voter fraud and inaccurate polling. He provided no evidence to back up his claims, but critics feared that his rhetoric could undermine public trust in the outcome of the election.

On Friday, The Washington Post published a detailed post-mortem of the administrations decision-making process that showed the former president agonizing over how to prevent politicization of the threat and arguably failing, critics say.

While Democrats appreciated Obamas sensitivity to the potential appearance of partisanship, they say the Russian influence campaign should have been treated like any other national security threat, without respect to politics.

I understand the analysis, but look where we are right now. This was the worst mess our democracy has been in since the Civil War, Swalwell said.

Other onlookers point to then-ongoing and extremely delicate negotiations with Russia over a ceasefire in Syria. The Obama administration publicly levied blame on Russia for the DNC hack and the wider interference campaign just a few days after former Secretary of State John KerryJohn KerryFrustrated Dems say Obama botched Russia response Budowsky: Dems madder than hell Tillerson: 'My view didnt change' on Paris climate agreement MORE officially suspended those talks.

I think the Obama administration figured, we have to deal with the Russians in the Middle East and they didnt want the stuff with the hacking to interfere with that, said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. But I think that was a mistake because if voters dont trust the integrity of the electoral system, weve got nothing left.

Johnson defended the White Houses response, arguing the administration repeatedly banged the drum on election cybersecurity throughout the summer and fall but was appropriately leery of undermining trust in the integrity of the election.

The Oct. 7 statement, Johnson said, was one in a series of public statements but it was overshadowed in the media by the leak of the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump spoke of grabbing women by the genitals.

Other former officials are less confident that Obama went far enough in his response.

It is the hardest thing about my entire time in government to defend, a former senior official involved in the deliberations on Russia told The Post. I feel like we sort of choked.

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Frustrated Dems say Obama botched Russia response