New documents reveal that the Justice Department spied on Republican Congressional attorneys back in 2017 while they were investigating the DOJ for their ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ attack on Trump.
The man behind the spying was an assistant US attorney in DC named Tejpal Chawla, how is said to be a donor to Democratic campaigns.
This spying was revealed when the court seal on DOJ subpoenas from 2017 recently expired and Google notified both Kash Patel and Jason Foster of the secret subpoenas.
Patel is now suing the DOJ for violating his constitutional rights and protections.
Here’s more via Daily Mail:
The Department of Justice illegally surveilled congressional lawyers in a ‘blatant abuse’ of power, according to the targets of the newly revealed snooping.
Top GOP congressional lawyers were investigating the Justice Department in 2017 over its controversial Russian collusion probe, codenamed ‘Crossfire Hurricane’.
But new documents reveal that at the same time, the DoJ office they were probing was spying on their phone calls and emails in an allegedly illegal ‘fishing expedition’.
DailyMail.com can reveal that one of the key players in the scandalous surveillance was Tejpal Chawla, a federal prosecutor who has donated to Democrat campaigns.
In 2017, Chawla, an Assistant US Attorney in the Washington DC US Attorney’s office, subpoenaed phone records of lawyers working for the Senate and House.
His snooping subpoena came just as those Congressional staffers were investigating Chawla’s office over its ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ probe, which alleged collusion between Russian agents and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Both watchdogs became aware of the subpoenas recently when they were belatedly notified by Google and other big tech firms, after a court seal keeping the subpoenas secret expired.
Although Chawla’s signature was redacted on the subpoena, enough of it was visible to see it matches tones he has used on other documents.
The congressional lawyers, Jason Foster and Kash Patel, were outraged by the Justice Department spying – both because lawyers receive greater protections from snooping through attorney-client privilege, and because they were acting as watchdogs of the DoJ at the time, in their roles on top lawmaking committees.
This truly is a blatant abuse of power, but it’s something that we’ve come to expect from this highly politicized Department of Justice. And while this happened in 2017, nothing has changed. It’s worse than ever under Biden and one has to wonder if it will ever change. Which is why we need a president like DeSantis who will dismantle the deep state and overhaul the DOJ and FBI.