justice-department inspector general, michael horowitz, has committed to investigating both of these cases. his work here will be invaluable. an investigation by his office, however, is no substitute for swift action by the department of justice, itself. he says, the committee has been in communication with the justice department. and we have made our position clear. the department has a very short window to make a clean break from the trump era on this matter. we expect the department to provide a full accounting of these cases. and we expect attorney general merrick garland to hold the relevant personnel accountable for their conduct. if the department does not make substantial progress toward those two goals, then we, on the judiciary committee, will have no choice but to step in and do the work, ourselves. so, he s not announcing that he s opening an investigation. the committee has a short window to make a clean break from the trump era. we expect a full accounting. we expect atto
statement today saying that the judiciary committee in the senate will, quote, vigorously investigate this abuse of power. they say, if barr and sessions don t agree to testify, voluntarily, they will subpoena them. but with a senate that s divided between democrats and republicans, 50-50, at least one republican senator would have to side with the democrats on that committee in order to issue such a subpoena. so, good luck with that. on the house side, though, the democrats are just plainly in charge, there. there d be no need for republican votes, if a house committee wanted to issue that kind of a subpoena for their testimony. but are the house democrats going to open their own investigation? and demand that kind of testimony? turns out, to be a very interesting question. in the house, the chairman of their judiciary committee is congressman jerry nadler. and he did not just plainly announce today, the way they did in the senate, that he is going to open an investigation into what h
just to recap the breaking news we got at the top of the show, the new york times reporting tonight that the trump justice department secretly seized communications records from members of congress, from democratic members of congress serving on the intelligence committee in the house. this is something that s never been done before as far as we know. two democratic members of congress serving on the house intelligence committee as well as some staff members and their family members, including one child, had communications data subpoenaed from apple by the justice department under trump attorney general jeff sessions and then by attorney general william barr as well. the times reporting barr s behavior on these investigations, quote, let some people in the department to see the inquiries as politically motivated. earlier this hour, the committee chairman adam schiff, one of the lawmakers who has communication seized told us that the new attorney general under president biden, merrick
investigating news organizations, the justice department under president trump secured a gag order on apple, which expired this year. so lawmakers did not know they were being investigated until apple was able to inform them of that fact last month. after the records provided no proof of leaks, prosecutors in the u.s. attorney s office in d.c. discussed ending that piece of their investigation, but william barr s decision to bring in an outside prosecutor helped keep the case alive. there do not appear to have been similar grand jury subpoenas for records of members or staff of the senate intelligence committee, just the house. spokesman for republicans on the house intelligence committee did not respond to a question about whether republicans were issued subpoenas. the justice department has declined to tell democrats on the committee whether any republicans were investigated. david laufman, a former justice department official, who has worked on leak investigations, tells the times
department. so it s extraordinary, maybe unprecedented for the department to seek records like this of a member of congress or staff of a member of congress or staff of a committee, to do so in a partisan way, to do so when they re investigating him, to do so openly calling on his department. it s hard to express just how shocking an abuse of power this really is. mr. chairman, do you know who the other democratic member is on the committee whose records were targeted? you know, i know some of the information about other people who received subpoenas. out of respect for their privacy, i will let them speak or not speak. but the truth is i don t know how broad these subpoenas were except that i know they were extraordinarily broad. went out to staff who weren t even related to the committee, who had no responsibilities on the committee. and in terms of how many members were affected, part of the difficulty in knowing for sure