A federal judge last week ruled in favor of a whistleblower advocacy group that sued the Justice Department seeking disclosure of documents related to the department’s secret acquisition of communications about congressional officials who were investigating the department.
Empower Oversight Whistleblowers and Research won a partial victory in a lawsuit it filed in May when a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to release the documents. Friday’s victory came days after the group filed a second lawsuit seeking additional records from the Justice Department.
“The records requested likely demonstrate an astonishing failure by the Department of Justice to respect the separation of powers long established in the U.S. Constitution,” Empower Oversight said recently. The complaint said“These records will show the extent to which the Department of Justice went to great lengths beginning in 2016 to covertly monitor a range of congressional staffers (of both political parties) who were actively engaged in oversight of the Department of Justice under its constitutional authority.”
The Department of Justice issued a subpoena to Google in 2017. Google email address record And a Google Voice phone number. Empower Oversight found that the Department of Justice obtained records from multiple Republican and Democratic lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee who are involved in oversight of the department.
House Republicans move to strengthen protections for Justice Department whistleblowers
Empower Oversight is suing the Department of Justice for secretly monitoring congressional officials working on the Justice Department’s investigations. The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (Sha Hanting/China Newspaper/VCG via Getty Images)
According to Empower Oversight, the Department of Justice kept this information secret for six years through gag orders obtained against Google and other providers in federal court in Washington, DC.
“This is a very serious separation of powers issue,” Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, told Fox News Digital.
He questioned whether the Justice Department had properly informed the court that the subpoenas were intended for congressional lawyers charged with oversight of the Justice Department.
Prosecutors seek two-year prison sentence for former Senate intelligence officer James Wolf in intelligence leak case
A court-issued gag order has barred Google from disclosing that it had released communications from congressional staffers to Justice Department investigators. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
“There are supposed to be safeguards in congressional oversight. If the security apparatus informs the Department of Justice that a congressional committee is in contact with a whistleblower, the whistleblower will be exposed,” Leavitt added.
Jason Foster, founder of Empower Oversight and a former senior staffer for Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, learned earlier this year that the Justice Department had obtained his records through Google.
“The Department of Justice does not comment on ongoing litigation,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in an email to Fox News Digital.
but, The New York Times reported. Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte wrote to the House Judiciary Committee in January saying the Justice Department would be changing its subpoena policy, primarily blaming the Trump administration. “The new policy will require additional consultation and approval,” the letter read.
The subpoena for Google emails and call records appears to be linked to an investigation into a federal leak of classified information related to a surveillance warrant for 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which ultimately led to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s former security chief, James Wolf, pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his relationship with a New York Times reporter.
Watchdog groups seek Justice Department subpoena records of congressional staff messages
On October 20, 2022, the Department of Justice inscription was unveiled at the Department of Justice Headquarters Building in Washington, DC. (Beata Saurzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
And yet, even after Wolf’s conviction, the Justice Department continued to receive annual renewals of the secret gag order from federal courts.
This is the second such lawsuit, following Empower Oversight’s public records lawsuit in May seeking documents related to Justice Department subpoenas related to court filings justifying long-standing confidentiality restrictions the department imposed on Google and other providers.
The recent ruling means Empower Oversight will have access to the supporting documents it sought in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit it filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The group filed public records requests with the Justice Department in October, November and June about the department using grand jury subpoenas to obtain personal and official communications of lawyers for congressional oversight committees investigating the department. The Justice Department did not initially turn over the records.
A Google spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Click here to download the FOX News app
But in a statement to Fox News Digital in May, a Google spokesperson said, “We are seeing an increasing number of non-disclosure injunctions being issued in response to court orders, warrants and subpoenas from US authorities. Notification delays deny users the opportunity to assert their rights and challenge data requests in court. For these reasons, we support the bipartisan Non-Disclosure Fairness Act, which would ensure that non-disclosure injunctions are issued only for good cause and for reasonable periods of time.”
Non-disclosure orders (NDOs), commonly referred to as gag orders, would require the federal government to adhere to established legal standards for electronic searches that apply to physical searches (such as notifying individuals unless a higher standard for delayed notice is met).
