Trump’s DOJ secretly obtained records of his FBI pick Kash Patel, lawmakers, staffers and media in leak investigation
CNN
The Justice Department secretly obtained phone records from two members of Congress and 43 staffers – including Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI – during sweeping leak investigations during Trump’s first term, according to a watchdog report released Tuesday.
The Justice Department secretly obtained phone records from two members of Congress and 43 staffers – including Kash Patel, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the FBI – during sweeping leak investigations during Trump’s first term, according to a watchdog report released Tuesday. The new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general raises concerns about how the department tried to root out reporters’ sources from a sprawling and bipartisan list of federal employees who had access to classified information because of their job. Patel and the two members of Congress are not named in the report, but two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Patel was targeted along with Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. Patel was a staffer for the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee at the time, and Schiff has since been elected to the Senate and took office Monday. Prosecutors also sought records including emails from journalists at CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times, according to the report. The report found that DOJ investigators issued a broad sweep based on who may have had access to the sensitive information that was leaked. Seeking records based only on “the close proximity in time between access to classified information and subsequent publication of the information… risks chilling Congress’s ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch,” the inspector general wrote.
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