The Trump Justice Department subpoenaed and seized data from Apple on the communications of at least two Democratic members of Congress, congressional aides and their family members to find who was leaking to the media about contacts between Trump officials and the Russians in 2017 and 2018, The New York Times reports.
Sources told the Times that metadata and account information of at least a dozen people, including House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and a minor was seized.
The metadata on the committee members’ communications did not tie them to any leaks.
In a statement to the Times, Schiff said Trump used the DOJ as a “cudgel against his political opponents and members of the media.”
“The politicization of the department and the attacks on the rule of law are among the most dangerous assaults on our democracy carried out by the former president,” he added.
Schiff is calling for an independent inspector general to investigate the probe into committee members.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed Schiff’s call for an independent investigation and called the news of Trump using the Justice Department to spy on his opposition “harrowing”
“The news about the politicization of the Trump Administration Justice Department is harrowing. These actions appear to be yet another egregious assault on our democracy waged by the former president,” Pelosi said in a statement. “I support Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s call for an investigation into this situation and other acts of the weaponization of law enforcement by the former president. Transparency is essential.”
This news comes after reports that the Trump DOJ sought to obtain email and phone records from reporters for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN.
