Republicans Raise Alarms Over Alleged DOJ Spying on Congress

Senate Republicans have launched an investigation into allegations that the Justice Department previously spied on Congressional lawmakers and their staff members, according to a letter addressed to Attorney General Merrick Garland that was obtained by Newsweek.

The letter, which was signed by Senators Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Chuck Grassley, accuses the DOJ of once engaging "in a campaign of covert surveillance of the personal communications of attorneys advising congressional oversight committees." The four-page document was signed on Wednesday.

Lawmakers pointed to information gathered by the nonpartisan watchdog group Empower Oversight, which said in a Freedom of Information ACT (FOIA) request to the Justice Department in late October that it had learned that its founder, Jason Foster, was notified on October 19 that the DOJ subpoenaed Google in 2017 for access to Foster's phone and email logs.

At the time, Foster was serving as the chief investigative counsel for Grassley, ex-chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Empower Oversight said that the senator was "directing congressional oversight investigations into waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct at the Justice Department" when the subpoena was allegedly made.

The Republican Senators also listed instances of times that "the personal records of a House staffer employed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence ('HPSCI') were additionally targeted as part of this vendetta campaign." In January 2018, for example, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to subpoena the "personal records" of members of the HPSCI "during a confrontation over the Justice Department's failure to comply with that committee's compulsory process."

Fox News reported about the instance involving Rosenstein in June 2018, citing emails obtained by the outlet that described the threat made during a closed-door meeting.

Congressional Democrats have also raised concerns over their private communications being targeted by the DOJ, the Senators noted in Wednesday's letter, including California Representative Adam Schiff, who called for an investigation into the Trump Justice Department in June 2021 after learning that a subpoena had been sent by the agency to Apple in search of his phone records. At the time, Schiff was a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Republican Senators are requesting that the DOJ provide a heap of information related to the alleged spying schemes, including the names of the officials at the Justice Department who may have drafted or approved the subpoenas in question, the names of those who were targeted by subpoenas, and the "specific predicate, criteria, or evidence that justified the Department's seeking of grand jury subpoenas to access personal communications."

"This extensive and far-reaching effort to use grand jury subpoenas and perhaps other means to gather the personal communications records of congressional staffers and their families with little or no legitimate predicate is absolutely unacceptable," read the letter.

"The executive branch overreach and gross violation of separation of powers apparent in this case no doubt shocks the conscience and shakes public confidence in our justice system to its core. The public deserves answers."

Newsweek sent a message to the DOJ's Office of Public Affairs for comment.