Our new court filing opposing @TheJusticeDept's effort to impose permanent secrecy on how it sought to hide the collection of my phone and email logs—along with the records a dozen other attorneys for oversight committees in Congress. ⬇️🧵 empowr.us/wp-content/upl…
1. Did @TheJusticeDept fail to alert the court the phone and email logs it sought belonged to Congressional oversight attorneys?
2. Did it also fail to alert the court that sought to renew the gag orders on @Google even after the leak probe that supposedly justified the subpoenas was closed?
How could gag orders possibly be justified long after the case is closed? It's reasonable to suspect it was to hide from the public the extent of its secret collection of Congressional communications records and the abuses committed in the process.
Unless the court unseals the records, you are not allowed to know.
The @JusticeOIG and Congress are both investigating, so it's a pointless waste of time and taxpayer money for DOJ to be delaying the inevitable by opposing our motion to unseal what it secretly claimed to the court for six years.
These are not "grand jury materials" but rather DOJ's secret requests to a court for gag orders forcing companies like @Google to hide from Congressional attorneys that it forked over their records to the Executive Branch.
Obviously, they ought to be open to public scrutiny.
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Chairman Smith: “New documents provided by the whistleblowers show that Hunter Biden repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a clear scheme to enrich the Biden family.” gop-waysandmeans.house.gov/chairman-smith…
But the bottom line is that the @FBI is not following the law.
It built a bureaucratic box designed to force employees to resign by withholding their pay and any meaningful appeal rights until they have to choose between vindication and feeding their families.
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. ⬇️
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.
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.
NEW FOIA: Two weeks ago, we sought documents on the @FBI's #whistleblower retaliation against Marcus Allen by denying him the ability to work while suspended w/o pay—for the last two years
Now, we are seeking documents on @FBI's claim that his family is not allowed to accept charitable contributions from the public to meet basic living expenses.
🧵2. A successful @GiveSendGo campaign raised thousands of small-dollar donations to help the families of Marcus and other @FBI #whistleblowers like @GOBactual.
But, a politically motivated #WarOnWhistleblowers pressured @TheJusticeDept and @FBI to block the charity.
🧵3. Marcus sought independent legal advice and we have been pressing the @FBI to explain how and why prohibitions on gifts should apply to Marcus's family under these circumstances.
The @FBI has been slow to respond b/c delay benefits them while Marcus and his family deplete their savings. So, now we're seeking all their internal communications about the issue.
🧵2. The @FBI has forced Marcus Allen's family to deplete their retirement savings by suspending him without pay for the last two years while it delays any resolution with every trick in the book.
Yanking his clearance violates PPD-19.
Yanking his paycheck violates 5 USC 2303.
🧵3. After the @FBI yanked his paycheck with no due process, Marcus asked to take another job while waiting for the FBI's security review.
@FBI ignored his request until it was too late and has also asserted the authority to stop his family from accepting charity.