This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 10 episode of “Deadline: White House.”
As Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House, we’re learning troubling new details about events from his first administration.
Seeking to investigate leaks of classified information, the Trump Justice Department in 2017 and 2018 secretly obtained phone and text message logs of 43 congressional staffers and two members of Congress in a far broader probe than previously known, according to a new report by the department’s internal watchdog.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report also found that Trump’s Justice Department violated its own policies in how it secretly obtained phone and text records from reporters. According to the report, then-Attorney General William Barr personally approved subpoenas for the news media. The department failed to consult a committee that was set up to review those moves.
Based on the reporting, it’s no surprise that Barr went around his own department’s policy and engaged in this type of aggressive monitoring — monitoring that seemed to be outside of not just Justice Department norms but also, arguably, some constitutional norms.
Now, with the beginning of Trump’s second administration just weeks away, the question becomes: What would Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, do if she found herself in a similar situation? We often talk about Trump directing his loyalists, but as Michael Cohen often reminds us, sometimes Trump doesn’t have to tell you what to do. You just know what he wants you to do.
As Michael Cohen often reminds us, sometimes Trump doesn’t have to tell you what to do. You just know what he wants you to do.
Whoever the next attorney general is — whether that’s Bondi or another Trump loyalist — the person likely already knows what the president-elect wants to do. They also know what the first Trump administration got away with four years ago, and now they’re coming back with a fresh team to be even more aggressive.
I don’t think there are any real surprises in Tuesday’s IG report, but this does sit in the laps of every Republican on Capitol Hill and, frankly, the Republican voters who — despite everything we already knew about Trump and his first stint in the White House — decided to return this type of administration to Washington in January.
Allison Detzel contributed.