knowledge of his work. barr moved a trusted prosecutor from new jersey, who has little relevant experience to the main justice department in washington to work on the congressman schiff related case and half dozen others. the ceo trump administration s effort to halt leakers led to the extraordinary step of spinning communications data from members of congress. that s unheard of move outside of corruption investigations. justice department leak investigations are fairly routine. current and former congressional officials familiar with this inquiry said they could not recall any instance in which the records of lawmakers had been seized as part of one. n seized a part omoreover, just as it did n investigating his organizations the justice department under president trump secured a gag order on apple which expired this year. lawmakers did not know they were being investigated until apple was able to inform them of that fact last month.
important norm and then, i think even beyond that on the spectrum of a president who is self under investigation by our committee and calling for an unprecedented subpoena, unprecedented subpoenas for accounted for mission pertaining to members of congress, to staff members, to family members, even to a minor child. and that, i think a terrible abuse of power. and it violates i think the separation of powers. but it also makes the department of justice fully owned subsidiary of the presidents personal legal interests and political interests. and as such damage unprecedented for the department to see records like this every member of congress or staff of a member of congress, or staff of a committee to do so in a partisan way and to do so in an
information that the u.s. government possesses. joining us now, new york times reporter michael schmidt, one of four reporters bylined on this breaking story. i should also note mr. schmidt is one of the times reporters who recently learned that his own records were also secretly seized by the trump administration in a separate leak investigation. michael schmidt, thank you for joining us. i know is short notice. thanks for having me. let me ask you you ve heard me some of your reporting by reading excerpts from it here. let me ask you to summit and your own terms and tell us what is, as far as we can tell, unprecedented and what is important about this. i think the most important thing, or the biggest one of the more fundamental problems with the entire episode is that this is what donald trump wanted. and this is why legal experts and people on both sides of the
child, a minor. according to committee officials, to other people briefed on the inquiry, all told the records of at least a dozen people tied to the intelligence committee were seized in 2017 and was then thep democrat of the house intelligence committee. who is now the chairman of that committee. prosecutors under the beleaguered trump attorney general, jeff sessions, or hunting for the sources behind news media reports about contacts between trump associates and russia. ultimately, the data and other evidence did not tie the committee to any leaks. investigators then debated whether they hit a dead end, some even discussed closing the inquiry. but, following the departure of jeff sessions, and the installation of william barr, trump s new attorney general, mr. barr revived languishing leak investigations once he became attorney general, according to three people with
after the records provided more proof of leaks, prosecutors and d.c. discussed and in that piece of their investigation, but william barr s decision to bring in an outside prosecutor helped keep the case alive. there does not appear to have been similar grand jury subpoenas of records for members or staff of the senate intelligence committee, just the house. a spokesman for republicans in the house intelligence committee did not respond to a question about whether republicans were issued subpoenas. the justice department has declined to tell democrats on the committee whether any republicans were investigated. david lofven, a former justice department official, who was working on leak investigations, tells the times tonight, quote, family members and children strikes me as extremely aggressive. then he says this, in combination with former president trump s unmistakable vendetta against congressman adam schiff, it raises serious questions about whether the manner in which this investig