The Department of Justice (DOJ) watchdog agency revealed on Tuesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was spying on President-elect Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, according to reports.
According to one report, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on the Justice Department’s pursuit of records through “enforcement procedures” of members of Congress, media outlets, and Congressional staff. press release.
The report does not name the individuals whose records were monitored, officials said. new york post And CNN Kash Patel He was among the people being spied on.
The Daily Caller contacted Patel’s spokesperson, who did not yet respond, but said the OIG report “highlights exactly why Kash Patel is the perfect leader to reform and rebuild the FBI.” “I’m doing it,” he told the Post.
At the time, Patel was a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee. According to On CNN. A person familiar with the matter told CNN that Patel was targeted in addition to Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. (Related: ‘Politically motivated’: Kash Patel files lawsuit over Justice Department subpoena for personal email account data)
Andrew McCabe, who abused his power to spy on Kash Patel, is now claiming that Patel is unfit to lead the FBI. Is there a lot of hypocrisy? The same Mr. McCabe who lied, leaked information and trampled on civil liberties is concerned about his liability under Mr. Patel. Numa is nervous. pic.twitter.com/Gc6qHCiLTt
— Erica Knight (@_EricaKnight) December 13, 2024
Patel sued several former top Justice Department and FBI officials appointed by President Trump in 2023, including then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, who resigned on Wednesday. Patel filed a lawsuit in 2017 over the FBI’s attempt to obtain a subpoena for data from his personal email account.
Mr. Patel was the lead investigator on the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into how the Justice Department and FBI handled the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. The FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane relied on the debunked Steele dossier to obtain a wiretapping warrant for Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The Justice Department also requested records from reporters at CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, according to the OIG report.
According to the report, in 2017 these media outlets published articles containing classified information.
According to the OIG, multiple news organizations reported in 2021 that the Department of Justice issued enforcement proceedings in 2020 to obtain “non-content communications records” of reporters from CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. The company said it was trying to identify the source of the information leak.
Deep State: FBI Director Christopher Wray decided to resign the day before the IG report was released because dozens of FBI spies were in the Capitol in J6 and he had been spying on Kash Patel for five years. Do you think this is because it has become clear that pic.twitter.com/ItIA6LRCJp
— @amuse (@amuse) December 13, 2024
The FBI declined to comment to the whistleblower. The Department of Justice also declined to comment, but pointed to the whistleblower’s response in Appendix 1 of the report.
“As noted in the report, the OIG found that there was no indication in any of these cases that the career prosecutors were investigated for improper reasons or based on their political affiliation or status. “We did not find it inside,” the Justice Department said.
The Department of Justice also said it has addressed two of the OIG’s recommendations and is evaluating a third.
Although the report acknowledged that the OIG found no “evidence of retaliatory or political motivation” by prosecutors involved in the enforcement proceedings in the records reviewed, the report found that the oversight “revealed, at the very least, any indication of inappropriate interference by the government.” It made an impression,” he added. Executive branch. ”
According to the report, the Justice Department used coercive procedures to seek “non-content communications records” from individuals on both sides of the aisle between September 2017 and March 2018.
This included 21 Democratic Congressional staffers, 20 Republican staffers, two independent staffers, and two members of Congress, the OIG report detailed. (Related: Exclusive: Nevada Public Safety Alliance backs Kash Patel for FBI director)
“[T]”The decision to issue most of the compulsory proceedings against their records was based on the temporal proximity between that access and the subsequent publication of the news article,” the report states.
“As a result, dozens of Congressional employees have become targets of federal criminal investigations for simply carrying out constitutional oversight of the executive branch.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, arrives for a meeting with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, on December 11, 2024. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Andrew McCabe is acting director He worked for the FBI from May to August 2017. He was fired as deputy chief in 2018 after an inspector general’s report accused him of lying about media leaks. However, he settled his lawsuit with the Department of Justice and got his pension back in full.
Kash Patel previously said He said, “From day one, we will close the Hoover FBI Building and reopen it as the Deep State Museum.”
