Susan Rice, the top national security adviser to former President Barack Obama, says it is absolutely false that she and other Obama administration officials used intelligence reports to spy on Trump associates for political purposes.'<br/>'<br/>Rice, in an interview with MSNBC today, said her senior White House role did give her the ability to request the names of Americans swept up through US spy craft. <br/><br/>But she would not say whether she saw intelligence on President Donald Trump's associates or whether she asked for their identities, saying that information would be classified.'<br/>'<br/>According to a US official, Trump national security aides discovered after the inauguration that Rice asked that the identities of the Republican's advisers be "unmasked." <br/><br/>To Trump backers, the revelations are evidence that the Obama administration was surveilling the incoming administration for political purposes.