A new report of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) secretly obtained the phone call and text message records of 43 congressional staff members, two members of Congress in 2017 and 2018 and members of the media. Justice Department prosecutors obtained call and text message records from telecommunications companies and third-party vendors, including Apple, through subpoenas, search warrants and court orders.
President Trump's Justice Department is already known to have attempted to obtain communications records from Apple as part of an investigation into press leaks about stories that Trump associates contacted Russian officials. The New York Times reported in 2021 that one of the subpoenas filed in 2018 demanded to see the accounts of 109 handles, including Democratic Representatives Adam B. Schiff and Eric Swalwell of California, congressional aides and family members, including one who was a minor. It now appears that the reach of those subpoenas was much greater.
The IG report says prosecutors attached gag orders to the subpoenas to prevent Apple and other companies from notifying their customers about the reporting orders. Most confidentiality agreements were extended at least once, some extending up to four years. The communication logs only showed the names of the parties involved in the calls and text messages.
Although the OIG report found no political motivation for prosecutors' requests, it noted that subpoenas and other legal means to obtain communications records “risk chilling Congress's ability to oversee the executive branch.” The report also says that the DOH did not convene the News Media Review Committeea Justice Department advisory committee formed as part of a review of its media policies in 2014, to review its requests for information and call its actions “troubling,” according to the report.
Apple also took steps to limit the scope of legal requests following news of the subpoenas served on Representatives Schiff and Swalwell. The technology company imposed a limit of 25 identifiers per legal request on customer communication information in 2021.
