Jason Foster Profile picture
May 2, 2024 14 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Highlight 🧵for our motion to intervene and unseal @TheJusticeDept arguments for hiding its broad subpoenas for phone and email logs of attorneys advising congressional oversight committees. ⬇️ Image
In 2017, when @TheJusticeDept and @FBI were resisting aggressive congressional oversight of FISA abuses, they secretly launched what looks like a broad retaliatory effort to target attorneys for their congressional oversight committees. Image
Using grand jury subpoenas and gag orders to companies like Google, they deployed a broad dragnet to covertly collect detailed logs of their overseers' patterns of communications. Image
They did not flag the important constitutional, privilege, and #whistleblower confidentiality issues implicated by this dragnet.

Rather, they simply sent a list of our phone numbers and email addresses—w/o mentioning we were attorneys advising committees doing oversight of DOJ. Image
DOJ convinced the court to order service providers like Google to simply comply and shut up about it.

What did @TheJusticeDept tell court? The whole truth, a series of misleading half-truths, or something else?

Who knows. It's all still sealed more than half a decade later. Image
Well, this is America.

It's supposed to be a free country, where court records are open to the public and the First Amendment guarantees our right to know what our government claims in court—so we and our elected leaders can figure out if its BS.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" Image
Due process: notice and an opportunity to be heard.

Is that too much to ask? Image
Transparency = accountability.

There is no legitimate reason to keep the government's ex parte claims in support of these gag orders secret after all these years.

Let's see them. Let's see how compelling, accurate, and complete they are.Image
Our press release…

empowr.us/empower-oversi…
And the complete court filing is here…

empowr.us/wp-content/upl…

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More from @JsnFostr

Jul 31
Why do supposedly professional investigators make snap judgments about what to pursue (Steele Dossier) v. what not to pursue (Clinton E-Mail probe/Clinton Plan Intel)?

It's not the Federal Bureau of Gut Feelings or What Feels True.

How about investigating stuff? Try that.
From the declassified Durham annex... Image
Fascinating... Image
Read 8 tweets
Apr 7
🚨 New Filing:

Our appeal of Judge Boasberg's order keeping secret the DOJ's arguments for hiding its collection of my and my Capitol Hill colleagues communications records a secret for more than six years—even after the probe that supposedly justified it was closed. Image
DOJ attorneys targeted the communications records of attorneys for the oversight committees in Congress probing DOJ's misconduct in the Carter Page FISA application. Image
We argue that the Judge Boasberg failed to apply the proper standard.

He improperly characterized these judicial gag order applications, which are governed by statute, as "ancillary grand jury materials" under 6(e).

But DOJ submitted these filings to a court, not a grand jury. Image
Read 15 tweets
Mar 19
🆕 Filing on behalf of FBI whistleblower @GOBactual, seeking full restoration of his security clearance. Highlights: 🧵⬇️ Image
We outline 18 legally protected whistleblower disclosures @GOBactual made.

Many were to Congress and already got lots of public attention. But look at #17.

It was an internal report, not on a high-profile politically charged issue.

But was it the catalyst for what came next? Image
@GOBactual An ambush criminal interview, followed by stranding his family without their belongings and blowing up his life in the middle of a cross country move?

This feels like more than just typical FBI CYA on something politically embarrassing.

This feels personal. Image
Read 10 tweets
Feb 27
🚨New 83-page Filing at the @USMSPB

How about some justice for the IRS Whistleblowers at long last? 🧵⬇️ Image
Proven high performers before they blew the whistle on the @TheJusticeDept taking a dive in the Hunter Biden case.

Everything changed. Isolated. Frozen out of career advancement. Scrutinized relentlessly, looking for anything to hang them with. Work life became hell. Image
The double standard was there from the very beginning. Just to open the case, the bar was higher "for a political family like" the Bidens.

The protected disclosures internally within the IRS started from the very beginning too. Image
Read 22 tweets
Feb 13
The FBI's recent pearl-clutching "purge" narrative is bizarro world backwards. Its purge targeted our clients long ago, and they still suffer.

When you know their stories, holding the culprits accountable is no purge; it's a little overdue justice.

@bhweingarten explains... 1/🧵Image
2/ 🧵 via... @RCInvestigates

realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/…
3/🧵Don't just take our word for it. We provided ample evidence to Congress about weaponization of the security clearance process to target the employees for political beliefs rather than legit security risks. The @JusticeOIG has testified about it. Image
Read 13 tweets
Feb 9
Nor does the constitution or any statute say anything restricting “political appointees” from accessing information about the operations of an agency.
Permanent bureaucrats have zero authority to hide information about the operation of their agencies/how they spent taxpayer money from officials acting on behalf of any duly elected president or congress.

That’s a clear neutral principle that should be obvious to all.
This is not about the balance of power between Congress and the President. Both have democratic legitimacy in our constitutional republic.

It is about the imbalance of power between career bureaucrats and our elected leaders in the two politically accountable branches.
Read 8 tweets

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