Representative Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has issued a subpoena to Attorney General Merrick Garland on December 19. According to the subpoena, Mr. Jordan is seeking information about the Department of Justice’s alleged surveillance of members of Congress and their staff in 2017.
In the letter to Mr. Garland, Mr. Jordan requested all documents related to the alleged requests for communications and the department’s use of legal process to obtain private communications. The lawmaker emphasized that this information is crucial to inform potential legislation reforms. He also asked Mr. Garland to provide the requested documents by January 19, noting that the DOJ has failed to fully comply with his prior requests for the information.
This subpoena comes after Mr. Jordan sent a similar letter to Mr. Garland in October, asking the DOJ to hand over all relevant documents regarding the alleged surveillance of members of Congress and their staff. This request was prompted by Jason Foster’s claims that the DOJ had subpoenaed Google for his personal phone records and emails during the time when Mr. Grassley was conducting oversight of the department’s handling of the so-called Steele dossier.
The Steele dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Foster also claimed that the DOJ had ordered Google not to notify members of Congress or their staff for five consecutive years that their communications had been subpoenaed in 2017. Reports also emerged that the DOJ had allegedly used grand jury subpoenas to secretly access personal information belonging to multiple House Republican staffers.
These reports included personal information belonging to former Intelligence Committee senior counsel Kash Patel, who is now an Epoch Times contributor. Mr. Jordan has also called on Big Tech giants, including Apple and Google’s parent company, Alphabet, to hand over information regarding the alleged surveillance.
In his letter to Mr. Garland, Mr. Jordan expressed concerns that the DOJ’s investigation may have been a pretext to justify accessing data from Members and staff involved in conducting oversight of the Department. In November, the DOJ released new guidelines on subpoenaing congressional members or their staff. These new guidelines state that such individuals cannot be subpoenaed or interviewed without search warrants. The Department of Justice is guided by principles of federal prosecution to ensure that federal prosecutors are even-handed in the fair and faithful execution of the law while being protective of the rights of individuals involved in criminal investigations.
