House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has subpoenaed Attorney General Merrick Garland for information on alleged surveillance of members of Congress and congressional staff during the Russiagate controversy.
The subpoena comes after the Department of Justice’s inadequate response to the panel’s request for details about the apparent use of subpoenas to obtain private communications of Legislative Branch employees.
Jordan’s letter to Garland highlighted concerns that the DOJ’s investigation may have been a pretext to improperly access data from members and staff involved in oversight of the Department. (Trending: FBI Bribery Probe Caught Joe Biden’s Brother On Tape)
Rep. Jordan wrote in his letter that his panel “must resort to compulsory process” due to the “inadequate response to date” by the Department of Justice (DOJ) following his request for details about the DOJ using subpoenas to obtain private communications of Legislative Branch employees.
Rep. Jordan revealed The DOJ had communicated to Jordan’s House committee that the subpoenas were connected to an investigation into the “unauthorized disclosure of classified information in a national media publication.”
Government watchdog group Empower Oversight claimed to have information “indicating that the other accounts listed in the subpoena belonged to other staffers, both Republicans and Democrats, for U.S. House and Senate committees also engaged in oversight investigations of the Justice Department at the time pursuant to their authorities under the U.S. Constitution.”
Jordan accused the Executive Branch of using its “immense law-enforcement authority to gather and search the private communications of multiple Legislative Branch employees who were conducting Constitutional oversight of the Department’s investigative actions — actions that were later found to be unlawful.”
“Because the Department has not complied in full with our requests, we cannot independently determine whether the Department sought to alleviate the heightened separation-of-powers sensitivities involved or whether the Department first sought the information through other means before resorting to legal process,” wrote the Ohio Republican.
Adding, “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.”
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