OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The FBI during the Trump and Biden years spied on its likely new director, Kash Patel, according to a new Department of Justice inspector general report.
Patel has pledged to “clean house” at the Hoover Building and hold accountable all those who “abused their power” during the Russiagate “witch hunt.”
He may begin by addressing the officials and agents who secretly collected his phone records and emails starting in late 2017. At that time, he was leading a House Intelligence Committee investigation into the FBI’s use of false opposition research from Hillary Clinton to surveil a Trump campaign official, labeling them as a supposed “Russian agent,” RealClearInvestigations correspondent Paul Sperry wrote.
A nearly 100-page report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General reveals that the FBI issued subpoenas for records as part of an investigation, which aimed to determine whether congressional staffers leaked classified information regarding the Trump-Russia “collusion” case to the Washington Post and other media outlets, Sperry noted.
He added:
Working with career prosecutors at Justice, the FBI compelled Google and Apple to turn over the sensitive private information of subjects the FBI identified “between September 2017 and March 2018,” a period when Andrew McCabe was the acting FBI director. (Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was out of the loop, the report said, having recused himself from the Russia probe.)
The court orders gagged the service providers from notifying Patel and other customers of the intrusion.
As chief counsel, Patel had no idea that the subject of his investigation — the FBI — was collecting his data and increasing the visibility of witnesses he was communicating with, including whistleblowers.
At the time, Patel was seeking access to FBI documents and to depose FBI witnesses to determine whether the bureau had misused its authority in securing a FISA warrant to surveil Trump aide Carter Page, Sperry wrote.
Patel remained unaware until 2022, when Google was finally authorized to send him a copy of the subpoena. Angry, he told Sperry then: “The FBI and DOJ subpoenaed my personal records while I caught them doing this to Page back in 2017.”
Patel added that McCabe’s FBI didn’t want anybody to learn that it “literally copied and pasted” opposition research from Democrats, wholesale, into warrant applications for wiretaps.
He noted further that he hoped those agents and officials responsible for the abuses would eventually be held to account by a future Trump administration: “They must be held accountable or they’ll only abuse their power again.”
The IG probe shows that the FBI renewed the subpoenas each year, monitoring congressional staffers for up to five years. This means that McCabe’s successor, Christopher Wray, also approved the ongoing collections.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered that the unprecedented surveillance created by the FBI gave, at the very least, the appearance of improper interference in legitimate oversight activities conducted by Congress. He cautioned that this situation could have a “chilling” effect on whistleblowers who might be hesitant to come forward, wrote Sperry.
On Wednesday, the day after the IG report was released, Wray announced he would resign at the end of President Biden’s term, allowing Trump nominee Patel to lead the agency.
“This [IG] report highlights exactly why Kash Patel is the perfect leader to reform and rebuild the FBI,” a spokeswoman for Trump’s FBI pick told the New York Post. “Kash understands the critical balance between national security and protecting civil rights [and] will work hand-in-hand with Congress to restore trust.”
A former ally of Patel on Capitol Hill, who was also monitored by the FBI, referred to the leak investigation as a “fishing expedition.” Jason Foster, a former Senate investigator, claims that McCabe used this investigation as a “pretext” to uncover what he and Patel were doing to expose FBI corruption in its Russiagate probe involving Trump.
“Mr. McCabe lied about his own leaking and should have been prosecuted for it, according to the Obama-appointed Justice IG [Horowitz], but wasn’t,” he told The Post. “Now that this fishing expedition into the communications of congressional attorneys has been confirmed by the same IG, the new administration needs to finally hold people accountable.”
