Bombshell report: DOJ was spying on members of Congress, congressional staff and media members, violating 4th Amendment

WASHINGTON, DC - A bombshell report released this week apparently shows the depth of corruption within the Department of Justice (DOJ). The Federalist reports that the DOJ employed a number of “creepy tactics” to secretly spy on certain members of Congress, the media, and congressional staffers who were investigating the agency. 

Between 2017 and 2020, the Department of Justice conducted four criminal investigations into alleged unauthorized disclosure of classified information, the outlet reported. Those investigations occurred “while House and Senate oversight committees were investigating the Department of Justice and the FBI for their role in the Russia-collusion hoax.” 

The outlet reported that the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General wrote the DOJ “did not charge anyone in these investigations with unauthorized disclosure of classified information.” All four investigations are now closed. 

The DOJ IG’s report, “A Review of the Department of Justice’s Issuance of Compulsory Process to Obtain Records of Members of Congress, Congressional Staffers, and Members of the News Media,” was released Tuesday. 

The DOJ’s investigation crossed party lines and probed 43 congressional staffers– 21 who worked for Democrat committees or members of Congress and 20 who worked for Republican committees or Congress members– their family members, and two Democrat members of Congress who are not named in the report, but who have been identified as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who was elected to the US Senate last month. 

According to the report, there was no probable cause to investigate specific individuals; instead, the agency went on a fishing expedition, aka spying, to see if anything could be found. The probe's targets included a “pool of possible leakers” after some in the intelligence community found that “possible leakers” had access to classified information near the time news articles magically appeared where the information was published.

As part of the probe, the FBI asked phone companies and email service providers to give up phone numbers, text message logs, and email information, the report said. Moreover, they looked at work numbers and private phones. In one case, they looked at the phone and email of a spouse of someone being probed. Worse yet, the DOJ ordered “third party communications providers” such as Google to comply with non-disclosure orders (NDOs), which banned them from informing customers that their information was being investigated. 

The DOJ also targeted reporters at several outlets with subpoenas seeking access to their phone and email records. Those outlets included CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and used the same NDOs and delayed notice to stymy reporters from finding out about the investigations. 

Among those investigated was Jason Foster, chairman and founder of Empower Oversight, which helps government insiders document and report corruption to the proper authorities, according to a press release from the company. 

Records sought included “his phone and email records when he led the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Oversight and Investigations unit for then-Chairman Charles Grassley.” [R-Iowa] 

“Each year for five years, DOJ secretly obtained gag orders from the court to prevent Google–the initial recipient of the subpoena for the congressional communications logs–from notifying its legislative branch customers that it has provided their records to the executive branch,” the press release noted. 

Empower Oversight made a records request asking for all records the IG has that reference Mr. Foster. 

“The Office of Inspector General report confirms exactly what we alleged in our filing to Judge Boasberg that the Justice Department failed to inform the court that the targets of its subpoenas and gag orders were congressional attorneys,” a company statement read.

“The inspector general makes clear that the department withheld key context from the court and relied on boilerplate, cut and paste language for its subpoenas and gag orders, just as we alleged in our lawsuit,” Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt said. 

“In order to collect the communications records of a co-equal branch of government, the Justice Department should meet the highest standard of review, but here the department did not have to even show probable cause,” the statement continued. “Congress’ ability to conduct oversight and communicate confidentially with whistleblowers is at risk as long as the department can engage in these kinds of fishing expeditions.” 

“Empower Oversight sued the Department of Justice, and in an initial ruling the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Chief Judge Mames E. Boasberg agreed that two of the DOJ’s applications for nondisclosure orders…should be unsealed in part,” the release continued. 

“Empower Oversight has already filed a notice of appeal seeking a more expansive unsealing. The report underscores why additional unsealing is necessary.” 

CNN's headline read, “Trump’s DOJ secretly obtained records of his FBI pick Kash Patel, lawmakers, staffers and media in leak investigations.” 

From Politico: “Watchdog faults DOJ in Trump’s first term for secretly obtaining records of lawmakers and journalists.” 

From NPR: “Trump-era Justice Department subpoenaed congressional staffers, watchdog finds.”