A Department of Justice (DOJ) watchdog revealed Tuesday the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) spied on President-elect Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, according to reports.
The DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) published a report on the DOJ seeking records through a “compulsory process” of members of Congress, the news media and congressional staffers, according to a press release.
While the report does not name the individuals whose records were surveilled, sources familiar told the New York Post and CNN that Kash Patel was among the individuals spied on.
The Daily Caller reached out to Patel’s spokeswoman, who has not yet responded, but who told the Post the OIG report “highlights exactly why Kash Patel is the perfect leader to reform and rebuild the FBI.”
At the time, Patel was a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, according to CNN. The outlet noted that sources familiar with the matter told CNN that Patel, in addition to Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, were targeted. (RELATED: ‘Politically Motivated’: Kash Patel Sues Over DOJ Subpoena Of His Personal Email Account Data)
Andrew McCabe, who abused his power to spy on Kash Patel, now claims Patel is unqualified to lead the FBI. Hypocrisy much? The same McCabe who lied, leaked, and trampled civil liberties is worried about accountability under Patel. The swamp is nervous. pic.twitter.com/Gc6qHCiLTt
— Erica Knight (@_EricaKnight) December 13, 2024
Patel sued Trump’s former key DOJ and FBI appointees in 2023, including then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, who resigned Wednesday. Patel filed a lawsuit over the FBI’s attempt to acquire a subpoena in 2017 for data from his personal email account.
Patel was the lead investigator on the House Intelligence Committee’s probe into how the DOJ and FBI handled the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. The FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane relied on the debunked Steele Dossier to get a warrant for a wiretap on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
The DOJ also sought records from reporters at CNN, the New York Times and The Washington Post, according to the OIG’s report.
In 2017, those outlets published articles that included classified information, the report said.
Multiple outlets reported in 2021 that in 2020, the DOJ tried to identify the sources who leaked the information by issuing compulsory process to acquire “non-content communications records” of CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post reporters, according to the OIG.
DEEP STATE: Do you think FBI Director Christopher Wray decided to step down a day before the IG report was released because it revealed dozens of FBI spies were at the Capitol on J6 and that he spied on Kash Patel for five years? pic.twitter.com/ItIA6LRCJp
— @amuse (@amuse) December 13, 2024
The FBI declined to comment to the Caller. The DOJ also declined to comment but pointed the Caller to its response in Appendix One of the report.
“As the Report sets out, the OIG found no indication in its review that the investigative steps of the career prosecutors in any of these cases were pursued for improper reasons or based on party affiliation or status,” the FBI stated.
The DOJ also said it addressed two of the OIG’s recommendations and was evaluating the third.
While the report did acknowledge that it found no “evidence of retaliatory or political motivation” by the prosecutors involved in the compulsory process for the records the OIG reviewed, it added that the surveillance created “at a minimum, the appearance of inappropriate interference by the executive branch.”
The DOJ sought “non-content communications records” from individuals on both sides of the aisle from between September 2017 and March 2018 using the compulsory process, according to the report.
This included 21 Democratic congressional staffers, 20 Republican staffers, two nonpartisan staffers and two members of Congress, the OIG report detailed. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Public Safety Alliance Of Nevada Endorses Kash Patel For FBI Director)
“[T]he decision to issue most of the compulsory process for their records was based on the close proximity in time between that access and the subsequent publication of the news articles,” the report stated.
“As a result, 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.”
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be FBI Director, Kash Patel arrives for a meeting with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on December 11, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Andrew McCabe was acting director of the FBI from May to August 2017. He was fired as deputy director in 2018 after an inspector general’s report accused him of lying about media leaks. However, he settled a lawsuit with the DOJ and regained his full pension.
Kash Patel has previously stated that he would “shut down the Hoover FBI Building on day one and reopen it as a Deep State Museum.”