Several current and former congressional oversight staff have been recently informed that the U.S. Justice Department seized their phone and email records back in 2017 as part of leak investigations, belated revelations that have touched off an inquiry by DOJ’s internal watchdog and raised serious concerns about the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.
Over the last week, several current and former Senate and House staff from both political parties have alerted Congress that they received belated notifications from Apple, Google or other Big Tech firms that their email or phone records were obtained from their personal devices via a grand jury subpoena.
Officials said the seizures were related, in part, to leak investigations stemming from the FBI’s now-discredited Crossfire Hurricane investigation into Russia collusion.
The targeted staffers include people who worked for the Senate Judiciary and House Intelligence committees who have direct oversight responsibility for the FBI and Justice Department, raising concerns that the legislative branch overseers were being monitored by those they oversee in the executive branch.
“The Justice Department’s secret targeting of congressional investigators is a new low in the agency’s sordid history of abusing its authority to evade accountability,” Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, told Just the News on Monday evening.
At least one of Grassley’s former investigators when the senator chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee and helped uncover FBI wrongdoing in the Russia case, Jason Foster, recently received a notification of a subpoena dating to fall 2017.
“Ever since the botched Crossfire Hurricane investigation came to light, the FBI and Justice Department have gone to great lengths to cover up and distract from their own malfeasance. Their actions only serve to underscore the importance of Congress’ constitutional oversight responsibility. This attack on congressional investigators will not deter us from that duty, and the department must answer for this abuse,” Grassley also said.
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