Judicial Watch has sued the House Intelligence Committee and its chairman, Adam Schiff (D-CA), on Friday for records relating to Schiff’s phone snooping on his Republican counterpart, a journalist, and the president’s lawyer.
Schiff included phone logs purporting to document communications between Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA), journalist John Solomon, and presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, among others, attempting to implicate them in a plot to smear the reputation of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, whom President Donald Trump had constitutional authority to fire for any reason, regardless.
A press release from Judicial Watch explained:
The phone records led to the publication of the private phone records of Giuliani, Congressman Devon Nunes, journalist John Solomon, Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, attorney Victoria Toensing, and other American citizens.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit under the public’s common-law right of public access to examine government records after it received no response to a December 6, 2019, records request (Judicial Watch v Adam Schiff and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (No. 1:19-cv-03790)):
- All subpoenas issued by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on or about September 30, 2019 to any telecommunications provider including, but not limited to AT&T, Inc., for records of telephone calls of any individuals;
- All responses received to the above-referenced subpoenas.
Judicial Watch accused Schiff of abusing his power. Schiff allegedly used a subpoena to AT&T for the records of several unidentified phone numbers in an apparent attempt to conceal the fact that he was trying to reconstruct the phone conversations of his intended targets, which he then published in the Intelligence Committee’s impeachment report. Schiff did not cite any legal authority for his actions, which arguably violated the First, Fourth, and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution..
Nunes has said that Schiff violated his civil liberties, and that he will pursue all legal options; the White House responded by noting that one of the phone numbers in the report was incorrect.
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.
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