Lawmakers and advocates are sounding the alarm over a series of actions taken by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and intelligence community that they argue are both abuses of power and threats to the traditional independence held by both organizations.
The FBI agreed to aid the Texas government last week in tracking down Democratic members of the state Legislature who fled in an effort to block a controversial redistricting plan.
The commitment came as the FBI fired a series of agents, including those who had worked on controversial matters related to President Trump, prompting complaints agents were facing retribution simply for taking on assigned cases.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) for documents related to court victories against the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association.
The same day, DOJ also tapped Ed Martin to investigate James as well as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on allegations of mortgage fraud.
DOJ on Monday also launched a grand jury investigation into Obama-era officials they’ve accused of engaging in a “treasonous conspiracy” in investigating Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election.
Intelligence community leaders have since come under fire for releasing a number of documents related to the claim. Democrats say the documents expose sources and methods of intelligence gathering.
James, through an attorney, said she was targeted as part of “the president’s political retribution campaign.”
“Weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration. If prosecutors carry out this improper tactic and are genuinely interested in the truth, we are ready and waiting with the facts and the law,” her attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement.
The other moves are likewise coming under scrutiny.
Democrats sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi asking for the legal basis on which the bureau could be involved in tracking down the Texas lawmakers.
“These reports suggest that the FBI is diverting federal law enforcement away from fighting terrorism, drug trafficking, and other federal crimes to instead harass and target Texans’ duly elected representatives, and thus raise urgent questions about the legal basis, scale, and appropriateness of federal law enforcement involvement in a state-level political matter,” Reps. Robert Garcia (Calif.) and Jamie Raskin (Md.), the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Judiciary committees, respectively, wrote in a letter also signed by Texas Democratic Reps. Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett.
The group pointed to a 2003 ruling from a state judge that reviewed another incident in which state lawmakers sought to prevent a legislative quorum, determining that the Texas Department of Public Safety was limited in pursuing residents in cases where there was no crime.
“The ruling made clear that the state cannot treat quorum-breaking as a criminal offense subject to law enforcement pursuit,” they wrote.
The firing of numerous agents also sparked claims the bureau’s leadership was abusing its power and running afoul of civil servant protections in dismissing several career agents.
Brian Driscoll previously served as acting FBI director before Patel was confirmed, and during his brief tenure he rebuffed an early request from the Trump administration to turn over the names of all agents who worked on the cases of Jan. 6 rioters — a group that includes thousands of people.
Scott Jensen, whom Patel had recently promoted to director of the Washington, D.C., field office, and Walter Giardina, an agent who worked for special counsel Robert Mueller and aided in the prosecution of Peter Navarro, were also fired.
In a final note to staff, Driscoll said he was given no reason for his dismissal.
The FBI Agents Association criticized the firing as unlawful.
“The FBI Agents Association strongly condemns today’s unlawful firing of FBI Special Agents. These Agents were carrying out the assignments given to them and did their jobs professionally and with integrity,” the group said in a Friday statement.
“This action sets a dangerous precedent. It increases our vulnerability to criminal and national security threats at home and abroad. It prioritizes division over unity, stokes anger instead of solidarity within our ranks, and threatens to chill the work of agents rather than support it.”
The move was also blasted by Raskin and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“These are individuals [who] have dedicated their careers to protecting the American people, and their firings are part of a disturbing pattern of retaliation and politicization at an institution charged with safeguarding national security and the rule of law,” Warner said in a statement.
The FBI and DOJ declined to comment on the firings, their involvement in Texas, the launch of the grand jury, and its probe into James.
But the Trump administration has broadly defended such moves, consistently arguing the FBI and the Justice Department were political tools of previous administrations while arguing their own actions help confront those abuses.
“President Trump is restoring integrity to the Department of Justice after four years of weaponization, hoaxes, and attempts to imprison him. The DOJ is upholding Lady Justice and working to execute President Trump’s Make America Safe Again agenda, which is lowering crime, holding criminals accountable, and empowering our law enforcement community,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in a statement to The Hill.
Trump has at various turns denied asking for Justice Department interventions, though he has not hid his approval of the actions.
“Pam is doing a great job,” Trump said on CNBC when asked about the grand jury investigation into Obama officials. “I have nothing to do with it. I will tell you this, they deserve it. I was happy to hear it.”
The mortgage investigation from Martin is one of the first public actions taken by the Justice Department’s new Weaponization Working Group, a role he was given after senators signaled their opposition to him for a U.S. attorney role.
Schiff, through an attorney, said Martin has a conflict of interest in the matter as the lawmaker previously placed a hold on his nomination, in part due to Martin’s vocal defense of Jan. 6 rioters.
“The allegations against Senator Schiff are transparently false, stale, and long debunked. Now Ed Martin, the most brazenly partisan and politically compromised person possible for the task, has been picked to investigate a political adversary. The bias here is glaring,” said Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney fired by Trump who is now representing Schiff.
“Mr. Martin is a January 6-defending lawyer who has repeatedly pursued baseless and politically-motivated investigations to fulfill demands to investigate and prosecute perceived enemies. Any supposed investigation led by him would be the very definition of weaponization of the justice process.”
Also sparking pushback is the decision to open a grand jury inquiry into referrals made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
A memo released by Gabbard last month accuses Obama-era officials of a “treasonous conspiracy” she said was designed to undermine Trump. The documents she released, however, largely show officials discussing something that was never in dispute — that Russia was never able to alter vote totals.
She later released a report from House Intelligence Committee Republicans casting doubt on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed to help Trump win the election rather than just sow chaos in the U.S. election. Most other reviews, however, determined Russia wanted to help Trump win.
The Justice Department later released a previously classified annex to special counsel John Durham’s report on the 2016 election.
Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said both the Durham annex and the Republican report were “considered so sensitive and revealing of sources and methods that, until last month, [the committee] was not even permitted to retain a copy of either document within a classified safe in our own secure facility.”
“The highly irregular declassification process you engaged in could imperil critical intelligence sources and methods—a destructive action taken in order to advance a patently false political narrative,” he wrote, adding that they failed to consider “how foreign adversaries might use the information exposed.”
“When done in a cavalier manner for partisan ends, declassification can literally endanger lives and enable adversaries to discover and disrupt the means through which we collect intelligence.”
Former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, two of the officials involved in the claims, have called the accusations “patently false” and rejected claims they attempted to smear Trump.
“Every serious review has substantiated the intelligence community’s fundamental conclusion that the Russians conducted an influence campaign intended to help Mr. Trump win the 2016 election,” the two wrote.
“Contrary to the Trump administration’s wild and baseless claims, there was no mention of ‘collusion’ between the Trump campaign and the Russians in the assessment,” they added.
The intelligence community under Trump has defended the release of the documents, calling it a transparency measure.
“This effort reflects Director Ratcliffe’s continued commitment to elevating the truth and bringing transparency to the American people,” the CIA said in a statement when Gabbard released the documents.
Gabbard during a White House press conference also brushed off questions about the release.
“I think it’s a disservice to the American people that former President Obama’s office and others who are criticizing the transparency that is being delivered by releasing these documents,” Gabbard said.
“They are doing a disservice to the American people in trying to deflect away from their culpability in what is a historic scandal.”
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