While House and Senate oversight committees were investigating the Department of\u2064 Justice and the FBI for their role in the Russia-collusion hoax, the DOJ subpoenaed the private phone and email logs of multiple congressional staffers, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request \u2062filed Tuesday reveals. The executive branch\u2019s targeting of staffers assisting \u200cwith congressional\u200b oversight of the\u2062 DOJ and FBI represents a dangerous intrusion into the legislative branch\u2019s functioning \u2014 and one that demands answers and\u200c an \u2062accounting.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, \u200bthe\u2064 Virginia-based whistleblower firm Empower\u2063 Oversight dispatched a\u2063 letter<\/a> to\u200c the attorney general and a slew of other DOJ officials,\u200b including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. That letter detailed how the organization\u2019s founder, Jason\u2063 Foster, learned last week from a notice provided by Google that\u2064 the DOJ had \u200bsubpoenaed records of his \u200bGoogle Voice telephone number. The subpoena issued to\u2062 Google \u200brequired the tech giant to\u200d provide all telephone connection records and text message logs for Foster\u2019s private Google account from Dec. 1, 2016, to May \u200b1, 2017. <\/p>\n

At that time, as the Empower Oversight letter \u200cexplained, Foster served as the chief investigative counsel \u2063to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley. In that role, he directed congressional oversight into misconduct at the Justice Department. The DOJ likewise subpoenaed other House \u200band Senate staffers\u2062 working with oversight committees \u2014 both \u2063Republicans and Democrats \u2014 according to Empower Oversight. <\/p>\n

The Federalist has independently confirmed that \u200dat least one staffer on the House Permanent Select\u2063 Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) received the same notice from Google of the subpoena, \u2064which was issued by a\u2063 D.C. \u200cgrand jury on Sept. 12, 2017.<\/p>\n

That date proves significant because \u200cformer Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had\u2062 reportedly threatened to subpoena the \u2064personal records of \u200bHPSCI \u2064staffers during a heated January 2018 closed-door meeting<\/a> concerning oversight requests served on the DOJ. But based \u2063on \u200bthe Google notice\u200c sent out last week to the subpoenas\u2019 targets, the DOJ had \u2064already executed that threat.<\/p>\n

The Empower \u200dOversight letter takes to\u2062 task\u2063 the\u200c DOJ for undertaking what appears to be \u200b\u201can extensive and far-reaching \u200deffort\u2064 to use grand jury subpoenas and perhaps other means to gather the personal communications records of innocent congressional staffers and their families with little or no legitimate predicate.\u201d Here, Empower \u2063Oversight highlighted\u200c the substantial constitutional issues raised<\/a> by the DOJ\u2019s subpoenas, which targeted not merely a separate branch of government but also attorneys providing\u200d legal advice regarding congressional oversight of the very DOJ that subpoenaed the records. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Clearly foreseeing \u2063the excuse the DOJ will\u2062 likely give\u2062 for subpoenaing the staffers\u2019\u200c personal records \u2014 namely the need\u200b to uncover the individual who\u200d leaked classified information to the press \u2014 the \u200cEmpower Oversight letter also launched a preemptive strike to that rationale, writing: <\/p>\n

\n
If the only reason the Justice Department targeted the\u200d communications\u200d of these congressional \u2062attorneys was their\u2063 access to classified information \u200dthat was \u2064later\u2064 published \u200bby the media, \u200dit raises the question of\u2062 whether the Department also subpoenaed the personal phone\u200d and email records\u2063 of every Executive \u200dBranch official \u200cwho had \u200baccess to the same information. If not, \u200cthen the entire exercise looks more like \u2064a pretext to \u2063gather intelligence on those conducting oversight of the Department rather than a legitimate classified leak inquiry.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
To obtain answers \u2062to \u200cthese questions, \u200dthe Empower Oversight letter ended with a FOIA request for all grand-jury \u2062subpoenas issued related<\/a> \u200bto the same investigation that resulted in the targeting of Foster and other legislative staffers, as well as any grand-jury subpoenas issued for Rosenstein and other DOJ officials. Empower Oversight also requested \u200ccopies of\u2064 communications between the D.C. \u2062U.S. \u200cattorney\u2019s\u2062 office\u2064 and Rosenstein\u2019s office discussing\u200d the possibility of subpoenaing communications data from\u200c Verizon for official House and Senate cell phones. \u2063Additionally, the FOIA request sought communications between members of the press\u2063 and Rosenstein and\u200c other DOJ officials concerning a variety of people and topics, including Michael Flynn, Carter Page,\u200c Joe Pientka, Bill Priestap, Grassley,\u200c Foster, congressional oversight requests, \u2062and the Crossfire\u200c Hurricane investigation.<\/p>\n
While these FOIA requests \u200dmay\u200d uncover a few details, the federal government\u2062 rarely complies with \u200cits statutory requirements without judicial intervention and, even then, often succeeds in secreting information from the public\u200c by relying on broadly worded FOIA \u200cexemptions. The House \u2064Oversight and Judiciary Committees, however, aren\u2019t hampered by the limitations of FOIA, and given that the DOJ\u2064 targeted \u2062House staffers as well as Senate staffers, the majority-controlled House \u200dshould\u2063 seek the same documents directly from the DOJ. <\/p>\n
For that matter, so \u200bshould the\u2063 Democrat-controlled Senate, as the executive branch\u2019s offense was to the \u2062legislative branch \u200cas a whole, not just to Republicans. <\/p>\n
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\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n
rnrn <\/p>\n
What constitutional issues \u200care highlighted by Empower Oversight in \u200dtheir\u2063 criticism\u200d of the\u2064 DOJ’s\u200b subpoenas targeting innocent\u2064 congressional staffers\u2062 and attorneys providing \u200blegal advice \u2063on congressional oversight<\/h2>\n
\u2062N a better \u2062understanding of the situation, \u200cthe article provides background information. It\u200b states that the House and Senate oversight committees were investigating the \u200cDepartment of Justice\u2063 (DOJ) and the FBI for their role in the Russia-collusion hoax. However, during \u2063this \u200binvestigation,\u2062 it\u200c was revealed that\u200c the DOJ had subpoenaed the private phone and email \u200blogs of multiple congressional staffers. This revelation raises concerns about the executive \u2063branch’s\u200c intrusion into the\u200c legislative branch’s functioning.<\/p>\n
According to the \u200carticle, a whistleblower firm called Empower Oversight sent \u200ca letter to the attorney general and other\u2063 DOJ officials, including the \u2062U.S.\u200d attorney for the District of \u200bColumbia, to\u200c address this\u200d issue.\u2063 The founder of the organization, Jason Foster, discovered through a notice provided\u2063 by Google that his Google Voice telephone \u200cnumber records had been subpoenaed by the DOJ. The\u2062 subpoena required Google to\u200c provide all \u2063telephone\u2062 connection records and text message logs from Foster’s private Google account.<\/p>\n
The article also\u2063 mentions that the DOJ subpoenaed other House\u200b and Senate staffers who\u200c were working with oversight committees, \u2062regardless of their political affiliations. It \u2063is \u200cconfirmed that at \u2064least one staffer from the\u2064 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence received a similar \u200dnotice from Google regarding the subpoena.\u200d The issuance\u2063 of the subpoena \u200dby \u2062a D.C. \u2063grand jury on\u200c September\u200c 12, 2017, is seen as significant, as former Deputy\u200d Attorney General Rod Rosenstein\u200c had \u200dallegedly threatened to subpoena personal records of HPSCI staffers during a closed-door meeting in January 2018.<\/p>\n
Empower Oversight’s letter criticizes the\u2063 DOJ for its broad and extensive effort \u200bto gather personal communications records\u200b of innocent congressional staffers and their families\u200c without \u2063a\u2064 legitimate predicate. \u2064The organization highlights the constitutional issues raised\u2064 by the subpoenas, \u2062as they not only target a \u200dseparate branch of government but also \u200battorneys providing legal advice on congressional \u200boversight of the\u2062 DOJ.<\/p>\n
In anticipation of the \u200bDOJ’s possible justification \u2064for\u200c subpoenaing the staffers’ personal records to uncover the individual who\u200c leaked classified information\u200d to the press, Empower Oversight raises an important question. If the reason for \u200ctargeting these attorneys was their\u200c access to classified information that was later published\u200c by the media, it questions whether the DOJ also subpoenaed the personal phone and email records of every executive branch official with access to the same\u2064 information. This raises concerns that\u200c the DOJ’s \u2064actions \u200dmay be more of an intelligence-gathering effort rather \u2064than a legitimate classified leak inquiry.<\/p>\n
The article concludes by\u200c suggesting that \u200cfurther information is needed to fully understand the situation. It leaves the reader with a \u200csense of \u200dthe seriousness of the \u2062issue at \u200bhand and the need for transparency and accountability from the DOJ in\u200d its\u200b actions regarding congressional oversight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During the investigation into the Russia-collusion hoax, House and Senate oversight committees probed the Department of Justice and FBI. A recent FOIA request disclosed that the DOJ subpoenaed private phone and email records of several congressional staffers. This action by the executive branch targeted those assisting with congressional oversight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":499,"featured_media":2078867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2078866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2078866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2078866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2078867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2078866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2078866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2078866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}