This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 10 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes” guest-hosted by Ayman Mohyeldin.
As Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office in just over a month, we are learning new details about how his Justice Department spied on his perceived enemies the last time he was president. According to a new report from the department’s inspector general, the Trump-era DOJ secretly obtained phone and text message logs of 43 congressional staffers and two members of Congress in 2017 and 2018.
In its four years, the Trump administration referred at least 334 leak investigations for criminal investigation. That’s a record.
The inspector general found the Trump administration gave “at a minimum, the appearance of inappropriate interference” when it spied on two Democratic members of Congress. They were current Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who at the time was the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and fellow California Rep. Eric Swalwell, who sat on that committee.
Tuesday’s IG report also found that the Trump Justice Department “violated its own policies in the way it secretly obtained phone and text records from reporters in the same leak investigations.”
Now, we knew a bit of this before but not the details or the depth of this effort. In fact, the IG investigation was opened three years ago, after The New York Times first reported that the Trump Justice Department had secretly spied on Schiff, Swalwell, congressional staffers and journalists from the Times, Washington Post and CNN in an effort to find leakers.
The spying began under then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as multiple news outlets reported on the Trump campaign’s connections to Russia, including intelligence that had been classified at the time. Obtaining the records of sitting members of Congress was troubling enough but the spying was turbocharged under Sessions’ successor, William Barr.
The new IG report says that when Barr personally approved subpoenas of phone and text records from reporters in 2020, he did not tell an internal committee that had been set up to review such moves. The IG says Barr did not cooperate with its probe.
In its four years, the Trump administration referred at least 334 leak investigations for criminal investigation, according to internal documentation obtained by the Intercept. That’s a record for any administration in U.S. history. For years, Trump has railed against leaks to the press, calling them “very dangerous for our country.” In 2017, during a press conference, Trump told reporters he was calling on the Justice Department to investigate “criminal leaks.”
His entire time in office, Trump was obsessed with the idea of jailing people he thought were out to get him. Not just any people but reporters and members of Congress just doing their jobs. And now, even before he’s sworn in for his second term, he’s at it again.
Trump has already called for members of the House January 6 select committee to be sent to prison. During his interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press,” Trump said everybody on that committee “should go to jail.” While Trump says those officials can do “whatever they want,” he’s being very clear about what he wants them to do. Welker then asked Trump if he would direct his FBI director or attorney general to send those individuals to jail. “No, not at all,” Trump replied. “I think that they’ll have to look at that, but I’m not going to … They can do whatever they want.” While Trump says those officials can do “whatever they want,” he’s being very clear about what he wants them to do. Trump has been openly advertising that he wants leaders at the Justice Department who will do his bidding. And he may have found them in Pam Bondi, his attorney general pick, and Kash Patel, his proposed nominee to run the FBI. Patel is a dangerously unqualified political ally who’s already promised that the new Trump administration will go after journalists it doesn’t like. So even as we are still learning about the depths of the last Trump administration’s obsession with surveilling and punishing its critics, Trump and his allies are already signaling that it will be worse in the next administration. Allison Detzel contributed.
Ayman Mohyeldin is a host of "‘The Weekend: Primetime" and an MS NOW political analyst.
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