There's no indication that the Justice Department used the records to prosecute anyone.Īfter some of the leaked information was declassified and made public during the later years of the Trump administration, there was concern among some of the prosecutors that even if they could bring a leak case, trying it would be difficult and a conviction would be unlikely, one person told The Associated Press. Trump watched those channels closely and seethed over the coverage. Schiff and Swalwell were two of the most visible Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, then led by Republicans, during the Russia inquiry.īoth California lawmakers made frequent appearances on cable news shows. In May of 2018, he tweeted that reports of leaks in his White House were exaggerated, but said that nonetheless, “leakers are traitors and cowards, and we will find out who they are!” He repeatedly called on his Justice Department and attorneys general to “go after the leakers,” including singling out former FBI Director James Comey and Schiff, now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Trump inveighed against leaks throughout his time in office, accusing a “deep state" of working to undermine him by sharing unflattering information. The effort to obtain the data came as Trump was publicly and privately fuming over investigations by Congress and then-special counsel Robert Mueller into his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia. “The question here is just how did Trump use his political power to go after his enemies - how did he use the government for his political benefit,” said Kathleen Clark, legal ethics scholar at Washington University in St. The revelations also are forcing the Biden Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland to wade back into a fight with their predecessors. Who else may have been targeted? What was the legal justification to target members of Congress? Why did Apple, a company that prides itself on user privacy, hand over the records? And what end was the Trump Justice Department pursuing? ![]() The disclosure that the records had been seized raised a number of troubling questions. ![]() “Attorneys general's only loyalty should be to the rule of law - never to politics,” he said.
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