Jim Jordan investigating possible FBI ‘retaliation’ against GOP staffers
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Thursday demanded information from FBI Director Christopher Wray on why the government secretly sought out the private communications of Republican congressional staffers investigating the Justice Department’s probe of Russia collusion allegations against former President Donald Trump.
In a letter to Wray, the Ohio Republican wrote that subpoenas issued to Google in 2017 for emails and cellphone data belonging to the two former House Intelligence Committee staffers suggest that the FBI may have been attempting to retaliate against them for the panel’s efforts to expose the bureau’s flawed investigation.
Kash Patel, a former aide to then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), told The Post last year that he was one of the staffers who was informed by Google years later that his records had been subpoenaed.
“In 2017, Google reportedly received subpoenas for private emails and records belonging to two Republican staffers of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) while HPSCI was investigating the FBI’s misconduct,” Jordan wrote in the letter to Wray obtained by The Post.
“These subpoenas only came to light in 2022 due to Google’s policy of alerting customers five years after law enforcement takes such action. The timing of these subpoenas raise questions about whether the subpoenas were in retaliation for HPSCI’s oversight of the FBI,” he added.
Jordan noted that Special Counsel John Durham’s May report documenting the FBI’s missteps during its investigation into Trump-Russia collusion allegations “confirms many of the concerns about FBI misconduct advanced by HPSCI in 2017.”
The subpoenas against Patel and the other unidentified House Intelligence Committee staffer were issued during a time when Nunes struggled to compel the FBI and DOJ to turn over documents to his committee as he sought to prove that the government’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation was driven by a dossier funded by Hillary Clinton.
In a statement to The Post last year, Patel said, “The two-tier system of justice was alive in 2017 – this time spying on Capitol Hill staffers. The DOJ and FBI subpoenaed my personal records while I was Chief Counsel uncovering their corruption in Russia gate, and they used a Grand Jury to obtain it. Every member of Congress and every Capitol Hill staffer should be demanding investigations. Using law enforcement to execute political vendettas is a destruction of our Constitution, and it was brought to you by those charged with its ultimate protection – [former Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein and Wray,”
The subpoenas asked Google for records such as “all customer and subscriber account information,” “addresses (including mailing addresses, residential addresses, business addresses, and e-mail addresses,” user names, “screen names,” “local and long distance telephone connection records” and the “means and source of payment for such service (including any credit card or bank account number) and billing records,” according to Just the News.
The subpoenas reportedly didn’t specify whether the FBI or another component of the DOJ was leading the investigation into Patel and the other staffer.
The subpoenas were issued as Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated Russian collusion in the 2016 election, the DOJ inspector general probed the FBI for misconduct related to the Russia case, and several agencies were investigating leaks, including one that identified former Donald Trump campaign adviser Carter Page as the target of a Russian espionage operation in New York, which was traced to a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer.
Jordan demanded in his letter that Wray provide the House Judiciary Committee with “all documents and communications referring or relating to subpoenas issued to Google or any other email or telecommunications provider for records of members or staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence staff in 2017.”
He also demanded “all documents and communications referring or relating to documents received pursuant to subpoenas issued to Google or any other email or telecommunications provider for records of members or staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence staff in 2017” by July 27.
