Justice Department's secret phone record grabs during Trump years exposed in new report
DOJ watchdog finds prosecutors broke rules when collecting journalists and staffers phone data during Trump-era leak probes. Google had to tell targets about secret record grabs
During Trumps presidency DOJ prosecutors didnt follow their own guidelines while getting phone records of reporters in media leak cases (as shown in a fresh watchdog report)
The Inspector Generals office found that DOJ staff went around standard procedures: they grabbed data from news-people and congress workers without proper checks-and-balances. Some House staffers got caught in this data-sweep just because they worked with top-secret stuff — which was their actual job description
The report points to a notable case: Kash Patel who later became Trumps pick for FBI chief had his records taken while working at the House Intelligence Committee. Tech-giant Google stepped in and told him about the secret subpoena; this led to Patels legal action vs the department bout a year ago
The findings raise questions about DOJs methods in leak probes — showing how govt agencies sometimes bend rules when looking into classified info leaks. These practices which seemed to target both media-folk and government staff might come back despite past criticism
