justice department to do that. that s the context here in which tonight story breaks. just within the last hour, the new york times has broken a whole new level of the story. and again, it s not sort of a shocking revelation about the trump justice department, this is something as far as we can tell that s never been done before and u.s. government and has profound implications for the separation of powers between the branches of government that we ve got. this is the headline tonight in the new york times. hunting leaks, trump officials focused on democrats and congress. meaning, members of congress who are democrats. quote, as the justice department investigated who was behind the leaks of classified information early in the trump administration, it took a highly usual step prosecutors subpoenaed apple for data from the accounts of at least two democratic members of congress on the house intelligence committee, and staffers, and family members. one of those members was a
after the press, to go after his rivals. and he was open about that. he is not going to you know, question the authenticity of that reporting. this is something he really, really wanted. and he was exerting enormous pressure on the department when this happened. but it is one thing to know president trump was, as you say, demanding the justice department be used as a political tool against his enemies, that they use their immense power, investigative power and otherwise, to punish and investigate his enemies at his win. it s one thing to know that about him, and another to know the justice department was doing the stuff. that this did not land on deaf ears. under two different trump attorneys general stuff like this happened. one of the things i ve sort of audibly gasped when i got to the end of your article, was the note, the list of names of
of this on to punish the people who did it or investigate to find out what they did and deter this from happening again. that is becoming a larger and larger question every day, in the merrick garland era of the justice department. the more we learn about what s happening. michael schmidt, i know this is a breaking story just posted, thank you for helping us understand it. thanks for having me. i want to bring into the conversation now, one of the subjects of this story. one of apparently to, we believe, democrats on the house intelligence committee who had his records seized. now chairman of the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff. chairman, thank you for joining us, i appreciate you making the. time of course. well, mike schmidt jets told us that your records, the records of your entire staff and the child of one of your
considerations rather than a purely legal ones. i will also tell you as part of this reporting tonight, the reporters of the times say that william barr s perceived motivations here within the justice department came under scrutiny. mr. barr directed prosecutors to continue investigating contending the justice department s national security division had allowed the cases to languish, according to three people briefed on the cases. some had nothing to do with leaks about mr. trump but involved sensitive national security information. but mr. barr s overall view of leaks but let some people in the department to see these inquiries as politically motivated. the attorney general of the united states seen as politically motivated. seen within the justice department as politically motivated. as he used subpoena power to secretly obtain communications records for members of congress, including members of the intelligence committee, who are allowed to see the most secret
people who were involved in these actions at the justice department s, certainly briefed on them and kept up to date on them, who are still at the justice department, under merrick garland. these aren t just trump political appointees who are now gone who did the stuff. at least from your reporting, what appeared to be people who are still there now. correct. people that are still there now, and in regards to the larger stuff that has been disclosed here, the other subpoenas in fights that have gone on for information between the justice department and press, the justice department was seeking information from my and three of my colleagues emails, up until just a few days ago. this was until early june that this fight was going on between our legal counsel, david macron, and secret, with prosecutors, and the justice department. this wasn t something that happened into february, maybe a