Rod Rosenstein joins Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions in denying ALL knowledge of secret DOJ subpoenas sent to Microsoft and Apple for Congress members' data
Jeff Sessions, William Barr and Rod Rosenstein have all denied knowledge of secret subpoenas Trump's Justice Department sent to Microsoft and Apple to access data from members of Congress.
Trump and his administration were infuriated after detailed conversations between his aides and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. were leaked shortly after he took office in January 2017.
The Justice Department sent a secret subpoena to Apple on February 6, 2018 for 73 phone numbers and 36 email addresses that included accounts for Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell while probing the embarrassing leaks.
Neither Sessions, who served as Attorney General at the time the administration started probing the leaks, nor his deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein knew about the subpoena, a source close to them told the on Friday.
Mediate that if Sessions and Rosenstein were truly not aware of the subpoenas then it would mean people at the Justice Department who report to them were able to issue a subpoena without them knowing for private records of high-ranking House Democrats, their staff, and families - including a minor child.
Sessions' successor William Barr ordered the probe continue well into 2020, after accusing his own investigators of deliberately dragging their feet over the investigation. However, he also distanced himself from the subpoena on Friday.
Barr told in an interview that he was 'not aware of any congressman's records being sought in a leak case' while he was attorney general.
Donald Trump's Justice Department also secretly subpoenaed Microsoft to access a congressional staffer's email account in a bid to expose the leakers of classified information to the press, it has been revealed.
Microsoft said in a statement to that the company received a subpoena in 2017 related to a personal email account, and later learned the person was a congressional staffer. That staffer has not been identified.
Like Apple, Microsoft was under a gag order to keep the subpoena a secret and recently notified the customer that their data had been handed over after the gag order expired, the outlet reported.
A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the news in a statement to DailyMail.com.
'In 2017 Microsoft received a subpoena related to a personal email account. As we've said before, we believe customers have a constitutional right to know when the government requests their email or documents, and we have a right to tell them,' the statement reads.
'In this case, we were prevented from notifying the customer for more than two years because of a gag order. As soon as the gag order expired, we notified the customer who told us they were a congressional staffer.'
The Microsoft spokesperson said the company then provided a briefing to the representative's staff following that notice.
'We will continue to aggressively seek reform that imposes reasonable limits on government secrecy in cases like this,' the statement reads.
The new revelations show the extent of former President Donald Trump's obsession over such leaks and the extraordinary lengths his administration would go through to investigate them.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9681015/Jeff-Sessions-William-Barr-Rod-Rosenstein-deny-knowledge-secret-subpoenas.html