Attorney General Merrick Garland was hit with a subpoena by the House Judiciary Committee which seeks information about the Justice Department’s seizure of a congressional staffer’s personal communications in an alleged effort to spy on Congress.

In a Tuesday letter to the nation’s top law enforcement official, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) called for Garland to provide documents related to the DOJ’s 2017 subpoena of tech giant Google for the email and phone records of a congressional employee who was probing the origins of the Russiagate hoax.

#BREAKING: @Jim_Jordan subpoenas AG Garland for Information on the DOJ’s Attempts to Spy on Congress pic.twitter.com/3Mmnzenn3G

— House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) December 19, 2023

“Today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed Attorney General Merrick Garland for information on the Department of Justice’s attempts to surveil Members of Congress and congressional staff,” the committee said in a Tuesday news release.

“On October 19, 2023, Google notified the former Chief Investigative Counsel to then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley that the Justice Department had subpoenaed Google in 2017 for the staffer’s personal phone records and emails during the period when Senator Grassley was conducting vigorous oversight of the Department’s handling of the so-called Steele dossier,” the statement read. “Google’s notification to this staffer revealed the Justice Department likely also sought the personal records and communications of other congressional staffers—both Republicans and Democrats—who engaged in oversight of the Department during the same period.”

The Steele dossier is the infamous document put together by former Brit spook Christopher Steele that the pre-Garland DOJ used as a pretense to conduct a sweeping witch hunt into former President Donald J. Trump with its most notable salacious allegation being the one involving peeing prostitutes at a Moscow hotel.

Today we subpoenaed AG Garland for records of DOJ spying on congressional aides. https://t.co/Sqmwgl2yq1

— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) December 19, 2023

“Because the DOJ has not complied in full with the Committee’s requests, it cannot independently determine whether the DOJ sought to alleviate the heightened separation-of-powers sensitivities involved or whether the DOJ first sought the information through other means before resorting to legal process. The Committee also has concerns that aspects of the DOJ’s investigation may have been a pretext to justify piercing the Legislative Branch’s deliberative process and improperly access data from Members and staff involved in conducting oversight of the Department,” the Judicary Committee said in its statement.

Jordan’s Christmas gift to Garland comes after the committee’s previous requests for the information were fruitless despite the serious separation-of-powers issues that the DOJ targeting of staffers of a co-equal branch of the federal government would entail.

“If the Department’s representation is accurate, it indicates that the Executive Branch used its immense law-enforcement authority to gather and search the private communications of multiple Legislative Branch employees who were conducting Constitutional oversight of the Department’s investigative actions – actions that were later found to be unlawful,” Jordan wrote in the 3-page letter to Garland.

The Judiciary Committee chairman suggested the possibility of “potential legislative reforms” in the letter.

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Chris Donaldson

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Chris Donaldson is an ordinary American who is concerned about rampant corruption as well as the ongoing attacks on our way of life by those who have contempt for our hard-earned freedoms. A Navy veteran, he has been a frequent contributor to conservative websites and resides in Florida.

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