by Kristina Wong, Breitbart:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained private communications and other personal records of multiple Republican House and Senate staffers who were investigating the department’s role in the origins of the Russia collusion hoax, according to former senior Trump administration official Kash Patel.
A recently-revealed subpoena shows that the DOJ sought the records for not only Patel when he was an investigator for then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), but also those of Jason Foster, who was at the time chief investigative counsel to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (I-IA) and was also looking into the DOJ’s role in the hoax.
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According to multiple subpoenas revealed so far, the DOJ had subpoenaed Google, Apple, and other companies to obtain private records in what Patel believes was an unlawful attempt to dig up dirt on them in retaliation for investigating the Democrat-pushed hoax that Donald Trump’s campaign had colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
Kash Patel speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore, Flickr)
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Patel called it an abuse of power.
“You can get anything with a grand jury subpoena and this is what we know about. Did they surveil us with FBI agents? We don’t know,” Patel said, adding, “If you get a grand jury subpoena, you’re not just requesting Google [records]. You’re going to ask for everything that individual ever touched. Apple, Google, AT&T, Comcast, Xfinity, whatever, it’s all coming in. You’re not just going after one item. They have the ability to use the FBI databases to cull for information. And we know that Chris Wray’s FBI just last year was caught illegally querying the FISA database for American citizens 250,000 times. Each one of those instances is illegal. So, it’s not hard to believe that they would abuse their power again.”
Patel and Foster only learned about the DOJ’s subpoenas for their private records when they were notified by Google and other firms after court seals keeping the subpoenas secret expired.
Google notified Foster earlier this month that in 2017, the DOJ obtained records for his Google Voice telephone number between December 1, 2016, and May 1, 2017 — the exact time he was investigating the Russia hoax. Foster told DailyMail.com that the DOJ also went after his wife’s phone records and also possibly one of his work phones he used for Senate business.
“This was just a fishing expedition to gather intel on their overseers in Congress,” Foster told the outlet. “We were their primary oversight committee. And we were asking them very pointed and difficult questions that they didn’t want to answer.”
The DOJ official who signed the subpoena was Tejpal Chawla, a federal prosecutor who has donated to Democrats, DailyMail.com reported last week.
