The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) uncovered a startling revelation: President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) covertly obtained the telephone numbers and text message data of 43 congressional staffers, as well as two members of Congress and journalists, in both 2017 and 2018. Through a series of lawful requests, including subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders, DOJ prosecutors secured sensitive information from telecommunications companies, their third-party vendors, and even Apple, obtaining vital logs detailing names and textual content.
The Department of Justice under President Trump attempted to obtain communication records from Apple in the course of an inquiry into alleged press breaches, specifically those related to reports of interactions between Trump associates and Russian officials. Notified in 2021, a subpoena issued in 2018 requested access to financial records tied to 109 identities and related to Democratic lawmakers including Adam B. Schiff. Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California, along with congressional aides and members of their families, including one individual who was a minor at the time. It appears now that the scope of these subpoenas was significantly broader.
According to the IG’s report, prosecutors linked gag orders to the subpoenas in a bid to prevent Apple and other companies from informing their clients about the information requests. Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) have been extended, with some stretching up to four years at the very least since their inception. The communication records exclusively validated the identities of the occurrences mentioned in phone conversations and text message exchanges.
Despite the OIG’s findings that prosecutors’ requests lacked political motivation, he emphasized that the subpoenas and other methods for obtaining communication logs “pose dangers chilling Congress’s capacity to conduct oversight of the executive branch.” The report also notes that the DOJ failed to convene the Media Oversight Committee, a Justice Department advisory committee established in 2014 to review its information requests, characterizing its actions as “troubling,” according to the report.
Apple subsequently curtailed its compliance with authorized requests, acting swiftly after discovering a slew of subpoenas targeting congressional representatives. Schiff and Swalwell. The technology firm obtained consent from clients and stored their communication information as per authorized requests in 2021.
