It's pretty clear that the NSA is in a tough spot. They collected his communications, as they do with everyone. Then, there are multiple options for how this pl

It's pretty clear that the NSA is in a tough spot. They collected his communications, as they do with everyone. Then, there are multiple options for how this played out. The common straw man argument put forth is that he was communicating with a person who was under investigation by the NSA, and his name was unmasked. This narrative let's the NSA off the hook. As for why he was unmasked, that would be a political abuse, perhaps. What I consider more likely is an abuse by a third party which allows the NSA to make blanket denials. The FBI is a likely culprit. "“These opinions reveal devastating problems with the FBI’s backdoor searches, which often resembled fishing expeditions through Americans’ personal emails and online messages,” said Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “But the court did not go nearly far enough to fix those abuses. The Constitution requires FBI agents to get a warrant before they go combing through our sensitive communications.”" https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillance-abuse/ https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillanc... To me, this reeks of a gigantic scandal. The more the press frames this story as NSA vs Tucker, and then takes the NSA's side, the more I believe they understand the gravity of the situation and are covering for a third party. Eventually this will break wide open.