a patent abuse of the department. yet another example of the president politicizing, using the department of justice as a cudgel to go after his enemies. he would repeatedly attack our committee, attack me personally, call for investigations of our committee while we were doing an investigation of him. and apparently those pleas were met with a receptive audience at the very top level of the justice department, among sessions and bill barr, even though there was no evidence to support a leak coming from our committee. and so, you know, look, it s going to take a decade, i think, before the department recovers from this politicization. i spent almost six years with the department. i really venerate the department, and it s heartbreaking to see what he did to it and how you know, how difficult it is to rely now on the impartiality of the department given this sordid four-year history.
of at least two democrats on the house intelligence committee, aides, and family members. one was a minor. records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 18, including those of representative adam schiff of california, then the panel s top democrat and now its chairman. times reporter katie benner shares a byline on this story. she is standing by to join us and a moment earlier this evening, congressman schiff spoke to rachel maddow on this network about the unprecedented and disturbing nature of all of it. this looks like a patent abuse of the department, yet another example of the president politicizing using the department of justice as a cudgel to go after his enemies. the first, most important norm post-watergate is the president of the united states does not get involved in particular cases at the justice department.
staff members were all seized secretly by the trump justice department as part of this investigation. does that concord with your understanding now that the gag order as apparently been lifted on apple and they were able to notify you at least of some of the scope of what happened here. i don t know whether it was the full staff or not, and we are trying to obviously observe the privacy of our staff members. so we are reliant on people who want to report what they have received. we also do not know whether it extended beyond democrats on the committee to republicans, republicans are not saying. but you know, we are obviously deeply suspicious of what the justice department was doing, more than that, this looks like a patent abuse of the department, yet another example of a president politicizing using the as a cudgel to go after his enemies. he would repeatedly attack, personally, call for investigations of our committee,
congresswoman ilhan omar might face for comparing israel and the u.s. to hamas and taliban. we begin with the breaking news and congressional correspondent chad pergram on the search for answers about the search for leaks. good evening, chad. good evening, bret. the biden justice department is now investigating the trump justice department. the feds have previously investigated the records of reporters. but in a rare confirmation of an open probe, the doj watchdog says review subpoenas the department sent to apple. it was looking for information for democrats on the house intelligence committee. one of the target was president trump s nemesis intelligence committee chairman adam schiff. we are obviously deeply suspicious of what the justice department was doing. more than that, this looks like a patent abuse of the department, yet another example of the president politicizing using the department of justice as a cudgel to go after his enemies. peter strzok was the top
mr. chairman, thank you for being here. this is short notice for you, as well. i appreciate you making the time. you bet. what mike schmidt just told us is that your records, the records of your entire staff and the child of one of your staff members were all seized, secretly, by the trump justice department as part of this investigation. does that comport with your understanding now that the gag order has apparently been lifted on apple and they were able to notify you, at least, of some of the scope of what happened here. i don t know whether it was the full staff or not, and we re trying to obviously observe the privacy of our staff members, so we re reliant on people who want to report what they have received. we also don t know whether it extended beyond democrats on the committee to republicans. i guess the republicans are not saying. but, you know, we re obviously, deeply suspicious of what the justice department was doing. more than that, this looks like a patent abuse of