Russia

Trump Spied On His Own Counsel

Written by SK Ashby

Last week we learned that the Trump-era Justice Department was spying on congressional Democrats and their families including at least one child, but they're apparently not the only people the Trump regime spied on.

The New York Times first reported that the Trump regime also subpoenaed Apple for records on former White House Counsel Don McGahn.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department subpoenaed Apple for information in February 2018 about an account that belonged to Donald F. McGahn II, President Donald J. Trump’s White House counsel at the time, and barred the company from telling him about it, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Apple told Mr. McGahn about the subpoena last month, said one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter. Mr. McGahn’s wife also received a similar notice from Apple, the person said.

It is not clear what F.B.I. agents were investigating, whether Mr. McGahn was their specific focus or whether he was swept up in a larger net because he had communicated with someone who was under scrutiny.

If you're not aware, the White House Counsel is the executive branch's top lawyer. The White House Counsel would ordinarily weigh in on the surveillance of someone inside the White House, but in this case it was him who was under surveillance.

The effort to spy on congressional Democrats and even the White House's top lawyer were both tied to Trump's effort to obstruct the investigation of his campaign's close ties to Russia intelligence.

You might say Trump was just being paranoid, but I believe there are national security implications to this story. The Justice Department did not find anything in their dragnet that we're aware of, but I don't think anyone can be too confident that anything they could have found would not have found its way to the likes of Rudy Giuliani or another Trump associate in transit to someone close to the Russian government.

In other words, if they had actually uncovered secret sources who spoke to investigators, those sources may have been killed.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has asked the department's inspector general to investigate these subpoenas.