that she asked for identities of U.S. persons to be revealed to provide context to the intelligence reports, and not for political purposes. The report of Rice unmasking Trump officials followed an announcement by Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, "that he had seen reports indicating that Mr. Trump or his associates might have been 'incidentally' swept up in the monitoring of foreigners". The committee was investigating both Trump's ties to Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election and Trump's allegations that Obama had Trump Tower under surveillance. Lake's April 3 report of the unmasking specified "Rice's requests to unmask the names of Trump transition officials do not vindicate Trump's own tweets from March 4 in which he accused Obama of illegally tapping Trump Tower." Nevertheless, some Republicans called for an investigation into the unmasking while Democrats said that the unmasking story was a diversion from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. After members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were able to view the material on which Nunes based his assertions, both Democrats and Republicans familiar with the material said that there was "no evidence that Obama administration officials did anything unusual or illegal". Congressional intelligence sources called Rice's unmasking requests "normal and appropriate" for a national security adviser. In August 2017, Eli Lake reported in Bloomberg View that Rice's successor as national security adviser, H. R. McMaster, "has concluded that Rice did nothing wrong". Rice testified to the House Intelligence Committee in September 2017 that she requested the unmasking because of a redacted intelligence report concerning an undisclosed visit to the United States by United Arab Emirates crown prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in December 2016. During the visit, al-Nahyan met with Trump campaign advisors Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, and Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in New York. Rice's testimony appeared to allay the concerns of Republicans, with Committee member Mike Conaway stating, "She was a good witness, answered all our questions. I'm not aware of any reason to bring her back." In May 2020, Attorney General Bill Barr appointed federal prosecutor John Bash to examine unmasking conducted by the Obama administration. The inquiry concluded in October 2020 with no findings of substantive wrongdoing. Bash's 52-page report, previously classified top secret, was released in May 2022. Bash wrote he had found no evidence that any unmasking requests