On his very last full day in office on January 19, in the middle of an investigation that included then Senator Jeff Sessions’ discussions with the Russian Ambassador, James Clapper updated the rules on dissemination of the identities of members or staffers of Congress in intelligence reports.
One minor change to the previous procedures involved adding the Director of National Intelligence to the list of people whose requests to identify a MoC’s identity in a report don’t have to go through the same approval process as other people (which, in any case, involves approval by the DNI).
Here’s what that provision looked like in 2013.
As I suggested after Clapper most recently testified, his answers about unmasking the identity of a member of Congress or a Trump associate logically suggest he may have unmasked the identity of Jeff Sessions (though this process would involve someone else sharing the name of a member of Congress with Clapper, not Clapper unmasking the name).
LINDSEY GRAHAM: You made a request for unmasking on a Trump associate and maybe a member of Congress? Is that right, Mr. Clapper?
CLAPPER: Yes.
As I noted, the DNI is the person who has to approve the most sensitive requests. So by adding himself, Clapper only closed a loop, giving himself (or his successor) permission to ask for and receive information he himself had the authority to ask and receive in any case.
But I find the timing of the change interesting.