Monday on “Anderson Cooper 360,” CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto called a report that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice was behind the unmasking of identities of members of the Trump transition team in surveillance of foreign officials to be a distraction from a larger investigation of the Trump administration. According to what Sciutto described as a “source,” those allegations aimed at Rice were false, which is what Sciutto based his claim of this being a distraction. Partial transcript as follows: Well, just a short time ago, I spoke with someone close to Ambassador Rice, and this is the first comments from someone close to Rice today on these allegations. I’ll read it in quotes. “The idea that Ambassador Rice improperly sought the identities of Americans is false. There is nothing unusual about making these requests when serving as a senior national security official, whether Democrat or Republican.” That coming from someone who works for Ambassador Rice. But let’s go beyond that, because I spoke today with senior — former senior U.S. intelligence officials, the senior most who served both Republican and Democratic administrations, and this is what they have told me about this story. They said, “One, this