Rep. Adam Schiff Calls Out Norms Broken by Trump DOJ Seizing His Records: ‘Shocking Abuse of Power’
Rep. Adam Schiff appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show to address the NY Times bombshell report that the Trump Justice Department seized personal records of his and at least one other Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, which he called a “shocking abuse of power”
The Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump was so concerned about the leaks of classified information that it took the extremely rare step of subpoenaing Apple for private personal data from the accounts of at least two Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, aides, and family members, including a minor. From the NY Times report:
All told, the records of at least a dozen people tied to the committee were seized in 2017 and early 2018, including those of Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, then the panel’s top Democrat and now its chairman, according to committee officials and two other people briefed on the inquiry. Representative Eric Swalwell of California said in an interview Thursday night that he had also been notified that his data had subpoenaed.
Rachel Maddow asked Schiff to explain to her audience “Why is it such a big deal? Why would bit an unprecedented, or at least a very unusual thing to have records like this seized by a Justice Department?”
“Well, it’s really norm within norm within norm of being broken here,” Schiff replied. “The first, most important norm post-Watergate is the president of the United States does not get involved in particular cases at the Justice Department. He doesn’t urge the Justice Department to investigate particular people. That’s one very important norm.”
“Beyond that, the president doesn’t urge the department to investigate his political adversaries or his political enemies,” he continued. “That is even a more important norm.”
He then brought up the “specter of a president who is, himself, under investigation by our committee, calling for an unprecedented subpoena, unprecedented subpoenas for account information pertaining to members of congress, to staff members, to family members, even to a minor child.”
“And that is, I think, a terrible abuse of power. It violates, I think, the separation of powers. But it also makes the department of justice just a fully owned subsidiary of the president’s personal legal interests and political interests,” he concluded. “And that does such damage to the department. So it’s extraordinary, maybe unprecedented for the department to seek records like this of a member of Congress or staff of a member of Congress, or staff of a committee.”
“To do so in a partisan way. To do so when they’re investigating him,” Schiff said. “To do so openly calling on his department. It’s hard to express just how shocking an abuse of power this really is.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
