Democrat Counsel Daniel Goldman Refuses to Say Who Ordered Phone Snooping

House Intelligence Committee Democrat counsel Daniel Goldman refused Monday to answer questions from House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) about whether he or Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) ordered private phone logs to be matched to political targets and then published.

Goldman was testifying at a Judiciary Committee hearing on the impeachment of President Donald Trump, presenting Schiff’s 300-page report, which was released last Tuesday. The report included phone records purporting to show communications involving Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (D-CA), journalist John Solomon, presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others. The records were used to allege that Nunes — Schiff’s political rival — conspired to smear U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, a claim he denies.

Schiff has noted that his civil rights were violated, reserving the option of taking legal action in response.

During the opening of questioning by the Republican minority, Collins confronted Goldman about the decision to subpoena the phone records, to check the numbers against known individuals, and then to publish the logs.

Goldman was evasive, saying initially that the more important issue was the fact of the conversations themselves.

Collins pressed further, saying that he did not have a problem with the subpoena itself, but questioned the decision to go after particular individuals whose numbers matched the data, and to publish the logs in the impeachment report.

Eventually, Goldman refused to answer whether he, or Schiff, made the relevant decisions. He did not plead the Fifth Amendment as he declined to answer questions from Collins about the phone logs.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.