G.O.P. leaders are declining to enforce a court-supervised settlement for Mazars, Donald J. Trump’s former accounting firm, to turn over records in an investigation into whether he profited from the presidency.
Allowing Congress to target the communication records of private individuals will lead to no place good.
Civil libertarians concerned about the National Security Agency and potential surveillance from other bureaucracies in the executive branch might also consider worrying a little about Congress and whether it’s OK for a House committee to bypass transparency protocols to obtain the phone and text records of lawyers for the opposition, a journalist, and another member of Congress.
So, what are the limits of congressional surveillance? The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals might provide some parameters to that, after arguments last month in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.