By Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog said on Tuesday that prosecutors’ decision to subpoena records from members of Congress and their staff during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term risked a chilling effect on congressional oversight.
A report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General found that two Democratic members of Congress and 43 staffers, roughly evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, had their records subpoenaed as prosecutors pursued investigations over leaks of classified information to media outlets in 2017 and 2018.
The searches for records came not long after the Washington Post in July 2017 published an article about a meeting between Russia’s then-ambassador to the United States Sergey I. Kislyak and Trump campaign adviser Jeff Sessions to discuss Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The article cited intelligence intercepts as a source of information to confirm the meeting took place.
While the watchdog’s investigation found no evidence of political motives, it concluded that “dozens of congressional staffers became part of the subject pool in a federal criminal investigation for doing nothing more than performing constitutionally authorized oversight of the executive branch.”
The report concluded that the subpoenas created at least the “appearance of inappropriate interference” by the Justice Department into the work of Congress.
No charges were brought in connection with the investigations, which the report found are now closed.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone and Rod Nickel)
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