Some Journalists Wonder If Schiff Has Their Phone Records

Some journalists are beginning to worry that their phone records may have been caught up in snooping conducted by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and revealed in the House Intelligence Committee’s 300-page impeachment report.

In the report, which Schiff unveiled on Tuesday, the committee uses AT&T phone records to draw connections between Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), and his staff; President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani; investigative journalist John Solomon; and now-indicted Ukrainian-American businessman Lev Parnas.

The report lists phone calls between the named individuals — though it does not describe the content of the calls — and suggests that all were part of a scheme to “smear” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. The “smear campaign” forms part of Democrats’ case against the president.

Nunes revealed Wednesday evening that Schiff had used a subpoena of phone numbers, unrecognized at the time, to construct a record of the Ranking Member’s phone conversations — though Nunes disputes the suggestion that he was part of the effort to attack Yovanovitch.

While some media outlets — for example, CNN — have used the details in Schiff’s report to promote his theory that Nunes was part of the plan (with no evidence to support that claim), other journalists have begun to wonder if their phone calls were also swept up in Schiff’s probe.

Fox News White House correspondent John Fox, for example, took to Twitter to suggest that his phone number, too, was likely in Schiff’s records, but simply had not been published.

Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, who is also a Fox contributor, pointed out that many other journalists were “shockingly and shamefully silent about Schiff spying on a member of the free press.”

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.