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Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan announced that the House Judiciary Committee has begun looking into reports that the Justice Department spied on members of Congress and their staff.
Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley is also looking into allegations that the Department of Justice spied on his former chief investigative counsel, Jason Foster. On Tuesday, Jordan made the investigation public on Fox Business.
“We now know that they spied on congressional staffers,” Jordan said in an appearance on Fox Business’s The Evening Edit with Elizabeth MacDonald. “We want to know, how far does it go? Were they spying on members? Were they spying on other staffers? Keep this in mind, Liz: We know they spied on President Trump’s campaign. We know all that from the FISA Court and what they did with Carter Page and Papadopoulos—everything else. Now we’ve learned that they spied on one of Sen. Grassley’s staff members, Jason Foster.”
“We want to know, does it go further?” he stressed. “So we’ve sent letters not only to the Department of Justice but to all these carriers that the Department of Justice worked with to get the phone and email records from congressional staffers like Mr. Foster. How far does this go? Were they spying on members and other staff?”
Jordan wrote to Alphabet, Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon’s CEOs, as well as Attorney General Merrick Garland, requesting information about the DOJ’s alleged attempts to obtain the private communications of members of Congress and their staff as part of the investigation.
“The Justice Department’s efforts to obtain the private communications of congressional staffers, including staffers conducting oversight of the Department, are wholly unacceptable and offend fundamental separation of powers principles as well as Congress’s constitutional authority to conduct oversight of the Department,” the letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook read.
The letter continues by elaborating on the claim that the DOJ issued subpoenas to congressional staffers looking into the DOJ’s Crossfire Hurricane operation on behalf of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to obtain emails and records.
“These revelations strongly suggest that the Justice Department weaponized its law-enforcement authority to spy on the entities seeking to hold it accountable,” the letter stated.
As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jordan has made it a top priority to look into allegations of weaponization of the DOJ during the Biden administration.
The House Judiciary Committee is also investigating allegations of politicization in the Hunter Biden investigation by having federal prosecutors appear for transcribed interviews behind closed doors.
Last month, Jordan and James Comer of Kentucky renewed their investigation into President Joe Biden, who allegedly may have attempted to hinder Hunter Biden’s cooperation with the House’s impeachment investigation.
An official White House statement suggested that President Joe Biden knew about Hunter’s plot to ignore congressional subpoenas in advance, which led to the investigation.
According to the statement, “In light of an official statement from the White House that President Biden was aware in advance that his son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly defy two congressional subpoenas, we are compelled to examine as part of our impeachment inquiry whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress.”
“The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability (Oversight Committee) and the House Committee on the Judiciary (Judiciary Committee, and with the Oversight Committee, the Committees) are investigating whether sufficient grounds exist to draft articles of impeachment against President Biden for consideration by the full House. Along with House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, we set forth in a September 27, 2023 memorandum the evidence justifying the inquiry and the scope of this impeachment investigation. On December 13, 2023, the House of Representatives directed the Committees to continue this investigation,” the statement read.
“In light of an official statement from the White House that President Biden was aware in advance that his
son, Hunter Biden, would knowingly defy two congressional subpoenas, we are compelled to examine as part of our impeachment inquiry whether the President engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding of Congress,” the statement added.
The statement continued: “The Committees issued subpoenas to Hunter Biden for a deposition to be conducted on December 13, 2023. In correspondence with Mr. Biden’s attorney prior to the scheduled date of the depositions, the Committees addressed and rejected Mr. Biden’s justifications for not complying with the terms of the subpoenas, as well as Mr. Biden’s demand for special treatment from the Committees.”
