Barr Launched a Secret Intrusive Investigation into Dems on the Intelligence Committee. But He Lied to Harris About It.

In May of 2019, then-Senator Kamala Harris asked a flustered Attorney General Bill Barr a straightforward question. The exchange went like this:

Harris: Has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?

Barr: Um.

…

Harris: Seems you'd remember something like that and be able to tell us.

Barr: Yeah, but I'm trying to grapple with the word “suggest.”

It turns out, the answer was a clear “yes.” According to an explosive report by the New York Times, Barr’s Justice Department subpoenaed Apple for the data records of Trump’s political opponents on the House Intelligence Committee, including those of Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman. The Department, acting under pressure from the White House, was trying to unearth the source of leaks to the press about contacts between Russian operatives and Trump associates. It demanded cell phone data from Apple—and the company apparently turned that data over.

The DoJ didn’t just go after Schiff. It also subpoenaed and received Apple’s records for a dozen committee members, aides, and even family members, including a minor, ostensibly because the investigators believed a family member’s phone might have been used to leak sensitive information. It is unclear at this time whether any Republican members of the Committee, their aides, or family members were investigated. The subpoena wound up turning up nothing.

It is hard to overstate the implications of this. The White House weaponized the Department of Justice to dig into the data records of members of a co-equal branch of government, specifically ranking members of a committee that was investigating potential acts of collusion by Trump’s aides with a foreign enemy power. 

The use of a “leak investigation” to extend the department’s powers this far is truly chilling and the hallmark of a police state, not of a legitimate democracy. Trump had a vendetta against Schiff and was willing to use federal law enforcement to go after him. Along with recent reports that the Trump Justice Department also sought email data from reporters for CNN and the New York Times, a clear picture emerges of a White House blatantly discarding democratic norms and attacking political opponents and the press—using the full weight of the Justice Department. It also is clear that the extent of Trump’s corruption (obstructing justice, election fraud, conspiracy with foreign powers, and now DoJ fishing expeditions against his political adversaries) remains only partially revealed and understood.

Schiff blasted Trump in a statement released last night. “President Trump repeatedly and flagrantly demanded that the Department of Justice carry out his political will, and tried to use the Department as a cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media."

He added, “It is increasingly apparent that those demands did not fall on deaf ears. The politicization of the department and the attacks on the rule of law are among the most dangerous assaults on our democracy carried out by the former president.”

Schiff is now calling for an investigation into the abuse of the Department’s authority. “Though we were informed by the Department in May that this investigation is closed, I believe more answers are needed, which is why I believe the Inspector General should investigate this and other cases that suggest the weaponization of law enforcement by a corrupt president.”