Jordan subpoenas Garland for records of DOJ spying on congressional aides

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday for documents related to the Department of Justice obtaining private communication information in 2017 from congressional aides.

Jordan wrote to Garland that he needed the information to “independently determine” if the DOJ breached the separation of powers when it subpoenaed telecommunications companies for private information about numerous congressional staff members who were at the time investigating the DOJ’s handling of its Trump-Russia inquiry.

JAMES BIDEN RECEIVED $600,000 AFTER PROMISING POLITICAL FAVORS, WITNESS TESTIFIES

The chairman accused the DOJ of failing to comply fully with his prior requests on the topic.

The subpoena, reviewed by the Washington Examiner, asked Garland to provide the requested materials by Jan. 19.

Jordan initially contacted Garland about the matter in October after Jason Foster, a lawyer for the whistleblower advocacy group Empower Oversight, revealed that Google had recently notified him that the DOJ had subpoenaed it in 2017 for subscriber information associated with telephone numbers of his family members, as well as details about with whom the subscribers were communicating.

Foster, who worked for Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) at the time the DOJ sought his data about private messages, was among the numerous staffers who had the DOJ seize their data in 2017 as part of the department’s investigation into media leaks about Trump campaign aide Carter Paige. The DOJ’s efforts to gather the private data of some congressional aides came to light in 2021, but Foster did not learn he was among those aides until October.

Jordan said he was worried the data seizures were a way for the DOJ to pry into the activity of congressional aides who were investigating the department’s Trump-Russia inquiry.

“The Committee also has concerns that aspects of the Department’s investigation may have been a pretext to justify piercing the Legislative Branch’s deliberative process and improperly access data from Members and staff involved in conducting oversight of the Department,” Jordan wrote.

The DOJ, for its part, wrote to Jordan this month that it had taken “several significant steps” in 2021 to address accusations that the DOJ overstepped its authority when it spied on congressional aides.

Those steps included referring the accusations to the DOJ inspector general, whose investigation into the matter has been open since June 2021. They also included modifying the DOJ’s internal policies and adding approval layers for officials investigating members of Congress or congressional staff.

The DOJ noted that the subpoenas it issued in 2017, which Jordan said targeted the private information of both Republican and Democratic staffers in the House and Senate, were related to a single investigation into media leaks that the DOJ later found originated with one staff member, James Wolfe. Wolfe was a senior official on the Senate Intelligence Committee who later pleaded guilty to the leaks and was sentenced to two months in prison for them.

The subpoena to Google for Foster’s information in 2017 was part of that investigation, and the DOJ noted the information it sought was “non-content subscriber information” and was obtained via “lawful court authorization.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The DOJ added that Google was notified in 2021 that it was “free to notify affected subscribers” about the subpoenas.

The Washington Examiner reached out to the DOJ for comment.