Patrick Semansky
Affected were parliamentarians from the secret service committee of the House of Representatives as well as employees and family members, the paper wrote, citing sources not named. Specifically, it was about the parliamentarians Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. The internal supervision in the Justice Department under the current President Joe Biden announced an investigation on Friday.
The Democrats in Congress reacted indignantly to the revelation and spoke of an abuse of power. The Democratic majority leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, demanded that the ex-attorney general under Trump, William Barr and Jeff Sessions, had to testify on the allegations under oath – if necessary with a subpoena.
The “New York Times” wrote that members of the Justice Department had in 2017 and 2018, under threat of punishment, requested Apple to hand over the data of those affected – as part of an investigation into the possible breach of official information about the so-called Russia investigation against Trump. Apple was also obliged to maintain silence about the data request. This muzzle decree only expired this year. Exactly what kind of data the ministry obtained remained open.
Swalwell confirmed that Apple informed him in May that data from him had been submitted to the Trump administration. The Democrat described the procedure as “unacceptable” and demanded clarification. This is further evidence of how much Trump disregarded democracy and the rule of law, he criticized.
Schiff, who is now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, accused Trump of repeatedly targeting the Justice Department on political opponents. “It turns out that his demands did not fall on deaf ears.”
Schiff and Swalwell have long been harsh critics of Trump. In the two subsequent impeachment trials against the Republican, they had each been part of the team of prosecutors.
Only recently it became known that the Trump administration – looking for possible information leaks – is said to have also obtained data from journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the broadcaster CNN. (SDA)