Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ are hit with SUBPOENAS over claims they spied on congressional aides during the Trump-Russia collusion probe

By William On Dec 19, 2023

A top Republican is demanding more information from the Justice Department for allegedly spying on congressional lawyers investigating the opening of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

But at the same time, DOJ allegedly spied on their phone calls and emails during an illegal “fishing expedition,” DailyMail.com previously reported.

Now, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has subpoenaed incumbent Attorney General Merrick Garland for more information, following the DOJ's “inadequate” response to his previous demands.

Jordan says DOJ may have unlawfully used its law enforcement authority to “collect and search the private communications of multiple Legislative Division employees” who oversee the department.

Congressional attorneys Jason Foster and Kash Patel previously revealed that DOJ secretly subpoenaed their phone records while monitoring Crossfire Hurricane.

Congressional attorneys Jason Foster (left) and Kash Patel (right) say they recently learned that the DoJ secretly subpoenaed their phone records while they were monitoring Crossfire Hurricane

The oversight began after the two powerful congressional committees launched investigations into the Justice Department's “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Donald Trump's campaign's alleged collusion with agents of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election .

Foster told DailyMail.com that he received an email from Google in October revealing that the DOJ had requested his Google Voice records between December 1, 2016 and May 1, 2017.

Jason Foster was the chief investigative adviser to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.

DOJ officials who sought the phone records in 2017 were reportedly looking for the source of the leak of classified information about their investigation into Russia.

And those officials went after his wife's phone records and possibly a phone he used for Senate business, which he had previously disclosed to DailyMail.com.

“Google's notice to this staffer revealed that the Justice Department also likely requested the personal information and communications of other congressional staffers – both Republicans and Democrats – who oversaw the department during the same period,” the Judiciary wrote Committee in a press release accompanying the summons on Tuesday.

Jim Jordan also says in an additional letter to Garland, reviewed by DailyMail.com, that “heightened sensitivities regarding the separation of powers” are involved.

His committee is concerned that aspects of the DOJ investigation may have provided a “pretext to justify breaking the legislative deliberation process” and “unlawfully accessing records” of both lawmakers and their staff.

Foster and Patel were outraged by the Justice Department's spying — both because lawyers get better protection against attorney-client privilege snooping, and because they were acting as DOJ watchdogs at the time, in their roles on key legislative committees .

Last December, former House Intelligence Committee chief investigative counsel Patel was also informed by Google of the DOJ's secret tapping of his call logs dating back to November 2017 while he was investigating the department.

Patel is now suing the Justice Department for violating constitutional protections through a “blatant abuse of power.”

James Comey was the director of the FBI when it launched an investigation into ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russia.

The oversight began after Congress' two powerful committees launched investigations into the Justice Department's “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Donald Trump's campaign's alleged collusion with Russian operatives.

Special counsel John Durham was appointed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in 2019 to investigate misconduct related to “Crossfire Hurricane,” which investigated the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion allegations.

Crossfire Hurricane was embroiled in controversy early on and erupted into scandal when then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes released a report in February 2018 alleging that the FBI “may have relied on politically motivated or questionable sources' to obtain a surveillance order. Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Durham found in a damning report released earlier this year that the FBI did not have sufficient “factual evidence” to investigate Trump-Russia collusion allegations.

The report, which spans more than 300 pages, is a comprehensive summary of findings regarding whether the then-Trump campaign colluded with Russia in 2016 to interfere with the election results.

It found that the Justice Department and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict adherence to the law” when they launched the Trump-Russia investigation.

The special counsel forwarded the report on his four-year investigation, which cost taxpayers more than $6 million, to Attorney General Merrick Garland in May.

Durham writes in the report: “Based on the evidence gathered in the many in-depth and costly federal investigations into these matters, including the immediate investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the intelligence community appears to have had any actual evidence of collusion in their possession. the start of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.'