DOJ Spied on Kash Patel, Lawmakers, Hill Staffers, Reporters

Horowitz said that requiring such communications based on “temporal proximity between access to classified information and subsequent disclosure” risks chilling Congress' ability to exercise oversight over the executive branch. I wrote it. He further said of such a move:

…Congressional staff members are carrying out Congress's constitutional oversight duties solely to create the impression that the executive branch is inappropriately interfering with, at the very least, the legislative branch's legitimate oversight activities. The records will be scrutinized by the ministry.

Horowitz said there was no retaliatory motive or motivation based on political affiliation by the career prosecutors who ordered the coercive process against lawmakers, staffers and reporters. In his review, he did not recommend anyone re-billing.

IG report Found Although Justice Department policy at the time did not require it, the Justice Department did not disclose that the NDO was focused on members of Congress and Congressional staff.

The Inspector General's report recommended that the Department of Justice:

• Assessing when advance notification to senior departments, such as the Deputy Attorney General and the Attorney General, is required before mandatory procedures are issued to consider bifurcation of constitutional issues.
• Consider the circumstances in which an NDO should identify to the reviewing judge that the records subject to the proposed NDO are those of members of Congress or Congressional staff;
• Consider whether there are circumstances in which it is necessary to have an exhaustion requirement as a requirement for issuing a compulsory process to obtain records of members of Congress and Congressional staff.

The Justice Department also reportedly failed to follow the department's news media policies, which include:

• Specifically, the Department of Justice did not convene a News Media Review Board to consider the mandatory process authorization request. whether the Department of Justice did not obtain the required Director of National Intelligence (DNI) qualifications in one investigation and whether DNI qualifications obtained in another investigation were provided to the Attorney General before the Attorney General approved the request; could not be confirmed. and the Department of Justice did not obtain the Attorney General's express authorization for the NDOs sought for enforcement proceedings issued in the investigation.

Patel had previously complained about the situation; write In a newsletter, he wrote, “The Justice Department illegally spied on me during the Russiagate investigation!'' He later sued the Justice Department for secretly seeking access to his personal email accounts.