73 phone numbers. 36 e-mail accounts. looking for records dating back to inception. this really just sounds like a huge dragnet. well, and and as we peel the onion, i think we might discover there were more e-mail addresses and more phone numbers that they were looking at. and what becomes clearer and clearer is that this was really a phishing expedition. by people, who were interested in finding out where these so-called leaks came from. you know, president of the united states who was screaming from the rafters, as you illustrated just before, that he wanted that he believed adam schiff was a leaker. d democrats were leakers. and as a result, his justice department, both under jeff sessions and then, again, with bill barr, who seemed to reinvigorate what was seemed to be a petering out investigation. appoints someone to take all these leak investigations and and look at them. because the president of the
former president was hiding anything. you have already seen the personal animus, the name calling. in addition, the ex-president was, loudly, calling for action. quoting from a now-deleted tweet from february of 2018. quote, adam leaves close-committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. must be stopped. again, this was as the investigation was under way. and again, according to the times, it came up empty. let me repeat that. it came up empty. all of the allegations you heard the former president make, amounted to nothing. it was all bluster, from the king of it. now, as for former-attorney general william barr, three sources tell the times, that when he became attorney general, he revived the probe and put a trusted prosecutor on it. barr spoke with politico, today. here is their lead. quote, former attorney general william barr, on friday, distanced himself from reports that the trump-justice department seized communication records belonging to two prominent d
them to be told they can t disclose this. what happened, in this case, john, was that this nondisclosure order, this gag order, was extended three times, every year. and it wasn t until, just days before the biden administration comes into office that, it appears the justice department stops, essentially, responding to requests from apple. saying, do you still need this data? do you want us to keep this gag order? and it appears they just lost interest. and that s the reason why, today, you have this investigation from the inspector general, merrick garland, the attorney general. and deputy attorney general, lisa monaco, asked for this investigation to be done. because there, clearly, is some very some very unusual things about this. indeed. to say the least. thank you, evan perez, for your reporting. i appreciate it. thanks. joining us now, cnn political analyst and new york times washington correspondent, maggie haberman. also, cnn chief political analyst, gloria borger. gl
in a phone interview, barr said he didn t recall getting briefed on the moves. which is a clever answer, because he certainly might not have been briefed on the moves made before he was ag. but it says nothing, about the moves he, himself, reportedly made. he also told politico that during his time as attorney general, he was, quote, not aware of any congressmen s records being sought in a leak case. which again, plays funny tricks with tense. was he not aware, at the time? well, of course. did he become aware, retrospectively? it sounds like splitting hairs but william barr is no dope. what he, most certainly, is, however, is a proven dissembler and evader. has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone? i wouldn t i wouldn t yes or no? could you could you repeat that question? i will repeat it. has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or
extraordinary request. the the breadth of it is, simply, just broader than i can remember any of these types of requests. we are talking about 73 phone numbers. 2 i m sorry, 36 e-mail addresses, according to apple, was part of this demand that came in a subpoena, in february of 2018. and we, now, know that at least two members of congress. we know that some of their staff members and some of their family members, including somebody who was underage, was part of this dragnet that that the justice department was asking for. the metadata was asking for from from apple. here s this, john. one of the a person we talked to, familiar with the investigation, said that the request. it basically asked for data going back to the inception of all of these accounts, up to the present time, which was february of 2018. let me repeat that. from the inception of those accounts.